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Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience

RODERICK MAIN

R CEVELATIONS OF HANCE

Revelations of Chance

SUNY series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology

Richard D. Mann, editor

Revelations of Chance

Synchronicity asSpiritual Experience

Roderick Main

State University of New York Press

Published byState University of New York Press, Albany

© 2007 State University of New York

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Printed in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Main, Roderick.Revelations of chance : synchronicity as spiritual experience / Roderick Main.

p. cm. — (SUNY series in transpersonal and humanistic psychology)Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN-13: 978-0-7914-7023-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)ISBN-13: 978-0-7914-7024-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Coincidence—Religious aspects. I. Title. II. Series.

BL625.93.M35 2007204'.2—dc22 2006012813

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In memory ofJohn Mein Main

(1930–2006)

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xi

1. Introduction 1

2. Synchronicity and Spirit 11

3. The Spiritual Dimension of Spontaneous Synchronicities 39

4. Symbol, Myth, and Synchronicity: The Birth of Athena 63

5. Multiple Synchronicities of a Chess Grandmaster 81

6. The Self-Revelation of Synchronicity as Spirit: A Modern Grail Story 113

7. Synchronicity and Spirit in the I Ching 141

Notes 189

References 233

Index 247

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 7.1 Whole and divided lines

Figure 7.2 The four kinds of lines

Figure 7.3 Hexagram 44, Kou/Coming to Meet

Figure 7.4 The eight trigrams

Figure 7.5 Hexagram 43, Kui/Break-through (Resoluteness)

Figure 7.6 Hexagram 35, Chin/Progress

Figure 7.7 Hexagram 12, P’i/Standstill (Stagnation)

Figure 7.8 Hexagram 61, Chung Fu/Inner Truth

Figure 7.9 Hexagram 50, Ting/The Cauldron

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would especially like to thank Adrian Cunningham for his detailedcomments on much of the material in this book; David Curtis for manyilluminating discussions about synchronicity over the years; and JamesPlaskett for generously making the accounts of his experiences availablefor me to study. I would also like to thank the following who com-mented on parts or drafts of this work at various times: Allan Combs,Philip Goodchild, James Hall, Peter James, Victor Mansfield, PeterMoore, Andrew Rawlinson, Stuart Rose, Sean Ryan, Geoffrey Samuel,Robert Segal, Elliott Shaw, Patrick Sherry, and Bill Thompson. For prac-tical and moral support, I would like to thank my parents, John andCatriona Main, and my wife, Shiho.

Some of the material in chapter 4 was previously published in “Put-ting the Sinn Back into Synchronicity: Some Spiritual Implications of Syn-chronistic Experiences,” 2nd Series Occasional Paper (Lampeter, UK:Religious Experience Research Centre, 2001).

Some of the material in chapter 7 was previously published in“Synchronicity and the I Ching: Clarifying the Connections,” Harvest:Journal for Jungian Studies 43, no. 1 (1997): 31–44.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The following are four examples of the kind of experience with whichthis book is concerned.

A professor of biology, Adolf Portmann, was delivering a lecturethat he intended to conclude with a story about a praying mantis. Just ashe was about to broach this subject, a praying mantis flew into the lecturehall through an open window, circled around Portmann’s head, andlanded near the lectern lamp, to the effect that the insect’s wings cast onthe white wall behind him a huge shadow in the form of the arms of apraying man.1

In all his years of driving, relates the writer Paul Auster, he has hadjust four flat tires. These occurred in three different countries and werespread out over a period of eight or nine years. On each occasion, how-ever, the same person happened to be in the car with him—an acquain-tance he saw rarely and briefly and in his relationship with whom therewas “always an edge of unease and conflict.”2

One night a man dreamed that he was visiting Australia with hiswife and some family and friends. He was being driven in a car around alarge town and came eventually to a square where there was a churchwith three large bells hung at ground level in the open. Some months laterhe and his wife actually did visit Australia, and on a car excursion fromMelbourne with a couple of relatives they ended up in the town of Wan-garatta in north Victoria. There they came across a church on the floor ofwhich, just inside the door, were three large bells—with a further fivelying elsewhere in the church—waiting for a new bell tower to be built.3

An analyst on vacation suddenly had a strong visual impression ofone of her patients she knew to be suicidal. Unable to account for theimpression as having arisen by any normal chain of mental associations,she immediately sent a telegram telling the patient not to do anythingfoolish. Two days later she learned that, just before the telegram arrived,

1

the patient had gone into the kitchen and turned on the gas valve withthe intention of killing herself. Startled by the postman ringing the door-bell, she turned the valve off; and even more struck by the content of thetelegram he delivered, she did not resume her attempt.4

These four experiences are highly varied in both their content andthe manner of their occurrence. They have, however, an important set ofcharacteristics in common. Each of them involves two or more events thatparallel one another in such a way as to suggest that they are connected,and yet the usual way in which such connections are accounted for—in terms of some kind of causal relationship—seems inapplicable. The occurrence of such experiences has come to be called “meaningful coinci-dence” or—in the term introduced by the Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung(1875–1961)—“synchronicity.” A full account of this latter term will begiven in chapter 2.

There is certainly nothing new about such experiences themselves.Their basic form can readily be discerned in events traditionally describedas, for example, answered prayers, successful magic, divine interventions,signs and omens, and moments of good or bad luck. Within the last onehundred years, however, the phenomenon of synchronicity has come toreceive an increasing amount of attention independently of its relation-ship to any specific traditional belief structures or modes of thought.Though the present work refers to traditional frameworks for elucida-tion, its primary concern is with this recently emerged independent sta-tus of the phenomenon.

A considerable body of writing specifically on synchronicity has al-ready accumulated. However, a disproportionately small amount of thiswriting has been concerned with exploring at a serious level the possiblespiritual aspects of the phenomenon. (A full account of what is meant by“spirit” and “spiritual” in this work is provided in chapter 2. Briefly, theterms refer to an aspect of consciousness and reality that cannot be re-duced to either the physical or the psychic.) As a contribution towardmeeting this lack, the present work is a sustained inquiry into the rela-tionship between synchronicity and spirit. Although the primary aim is toadd to our understanding of synchronicity, some insights may also begained into the more general problem of studying anomalous and spiri-tual phenomena of whatever kind.

The work is set within the broad field of religious studies. This is a field traditionally very accommodating toward multidisciplinary andpolymethodological approaches,5 and considerable advantage has beentaken of this. My specific approach has been to set to one side initially theproblem of situating the present study within this or that particular disci-pline or circumscribed set of disciplines, focusing instead simply on the

2 Revelations of Chance

phenomenon of synchronicity itself, in whatever variety of forms it hasseemed most accessible to further scrutiny. In practice, this has meant sev-eral things: First, briefly reviewing existing studies mainly within the fieldsof analytical psychology, parapsychology, statistics, and cognitive psy-chology. It has also involved invoking theology and philosophy in order toelicit and elaborate on possible spiritual implications within the concept ofsynchronicity. Again, it has meant looking in detail at a kind of synchro-nistic case material that has not previously been studied—namely, exten-sive series and clusters of interrelated incidents all experienced by a singleindividual. Finally, it has led to a detailed and multifaceted examination ofthe ancient Chinese Oracle of Change, the I Ching.

The majority of the work that has been done thus far on the subjectof synchronicity is, not surprisingly, within the field of Jungian psychol-ogy. Jung himself, who coined and introduced the term “synchronicity,”wrote two significant essays devoted solely to its explication—one exten-sive essay and the other a more easily digestible abridgement of it.6 Alsoinfluential were the statements on synchronicity contained in his fore-word to the Wilhelm-Baynes version of the I Ching.7 The ideas containedin these three sources are repeated, and occasionally modified or ex-tended, in various other contexts throughout Jung’s voluminous writ-ings.8 Practically all of this material will be drawn on throughout thepresent study and especially in chapter 2, where Jung’s theories providethe point of departure for the definition and characterization of syn-chronicity in this work.

Among Jung’s immediate followers, Marie-Louise von Franz hasmade the largest contribution to the subject of synchronicity.9 Principallyshe has pursued certain indications within Jung’s work concerning thepossible relationship between synchronicity and natural numbers. Thishas led her into profound and fascinating explorations of the emerginginterface between psychology and physics, and has also resulted in somesuggestive speculations concerning the operation of divinatory proce-dures such as the I Ching. However, von Franz’s primary orientation istoward the scientific end of the spectrum of possible relevance of syn-chronicity, while the orientation of the present work is toward the reli-gious and spiritual end.10

Another Jungian-influenced approach to the understanding of syn-chronicity is the attempt to view the phenomenon mythically, that is, interms of the “god” or “spirit” that might be considered responsible for it.Thus, various writers have thought to elucidate aspects of the nature ofsynchronicity by viewing it imaginatively—or “imaginally”11—as the ex-pression of one or other of the gods of the Greek pantheon: Hermes thetrickster and transgressor of boundaries; Pan the god of spontaneity; or

Introduction 3

Dionysus bestower of the experience of mystical fusion and timeless-ness.12 Similarly, the way usually inert matter can appear in synchronic-ity to be miraculously animated has caused the phenomenon to beimaginatively explored in relation to the figure of the Golem.13

Among the numerous other Jungian contributions are studies witha more clinical emphasis,14 attempts to modify Jung’s theoretical think-ing,15 and a miscellany of other studies relating synchronicity to, for ex-ample, apparitions, the theories of relativity and quantum physics,typology and hypnotic induction, the Rorschach test, and relationshipsbetween adoptees and birthparents.16 There is increasing interest, too,in the relationship between Jung and Wolfgang Pauli and the signifi-cance of this relationship for the development of the synchronicity con-cept.17 Finally, there has also been some stimulating recent researchattempting to relate synchronicity to processes of emergence and self-organization.18 Within all of this, however, the possible spiritual aspectof the phenomenon receives only marginal attention.

Indeed, within the Jungian framework there have been very fewmajor studies focusing on the more spiritual or religious dimension ofsynchronicity. Three notable exceptions are works by Jean ShinodaBolen, Robert Aziz, and Victor Mansfield.19 The first of these emphasizesthe importance of synchronicity as an experience that can lead to a senseof cosmic meaning and connectedness.20 It does so, however, in a ratherintuitive way, and the book is at its best when dealing with the morepractical and psychotherapeutic aspects of synchronicity, before it movesinto a consideration of the spiritual dimension. Aziz’s book, by contrast,is a scholarly attempt to elucidate the significance of the concept of syn-chronicity for Jung’s own psychology of religion, and engages in an illu-minating way both with many general aspects of Jung’s psychology andwith particular issues relevant to the phenomenology of religion.21 Themain thrust of Mansfield’s book is to reveal connections between relativ-ity and quantum physics, Jung’s theory of synchronicity articulated interms of compensation and individuation, and Middle Way Buddhism. Inrelation to Buddhism, Mansfield skillfully develops the idealist implica-tions within Jung’s thinking.22

My own previous book-length study of synchronicity is a detailedexamination of Jung’s writings on the topic.23 It looks in turn at how thetheory of synchronicity fits into Jung’s overall psychological model, in-cluding a consideration of its apparent inconsistencies; the wide range ofpersonal, intellectual, and social contexts that informed Jung’s thinking onsynchronicity; how Jung himself applied the theory of synchronicitywithin his critique of science, religion, and society; and the continuing rel-evance of the theory for understanding issues in contemporary detradi-


tionalized religion. In contrast, the present work is concerned with eluci-dating the phenomenon of synchronicity as such rather than Jung’s theoryof it, and therefore has a wider range of theoretical reference. It is alsomore focused on the specifically spiritual implications of synchronicity.

Standing alone as a focused, scholarly contextualization of Jung’stheory of synchronicity is Paul Bishop’s study. This work presents syn-chronicity as the heir to Romantic notions of “intellectual intuition,” thebelief in the possibility of acquiring knowledge by a form of direct cogni-tion that bypasses the need for sensory information.24

Psychical research and parapsychology played a large part in boththe genesis and the subsequent development of Jung’s theory of syn-chronicity. In addition, these disciplines have provided the context forseveral studies of coincidence that do not center on Jung’s ideas. For ex-ample, before and independently of Jung, the psychical researcher AliceJohnson published in 1899 a lengthy study based on a large number ofcarefully reported and documented coincidences, sifting them for possibleevidence of the paranormal.25

Arguably the greatest impact on the study of coincidences outsidespecifically Jungian circles was made by Arthur Koestler, who was alsowriting from a predominantly parapsychological perspective. In the early1970s he published two books specifically on coincidences, and also ac-cumulated a large collection of spontaneous case material through ap-peals in the media.26 In addition to parapsychology, his thinking on thissubject was greatly influenced by physics and the other hard sciences. Hepostulated that there were two complementary principles operating at alllevels of reality: a self-assertive tendency, which enables entities to asserttheir individuality and autonomy, and an integrative tendency, by whichthose same entities remain subordinate to the demands of the largerwhole of which they are a part.27 His suggested explanation of coinci-dences is to see them as expressions of his integrative tendency, which hethought could be regarded as “a universal principle which includes a-causal phenomena.”28 However, unlike Jung—and rather surprisinglyfor a novelist—Koestler shows little appreciation of the psychological andimaginative dimension of the phenomenon.

On the question of whether there might be a spiritual aspect of co-incidences, Koestler’s theory seems neutral. He points out that the inte-grative tendency can give rise to a range of self-transcending emotions,that is, “a craving to surrender to something that is larger than societyand transcends the boundaries of the self—which may be God, or nature,or a Bach cantata, or the mystic’s ‘oceanic feeling.’”29 The integrative ten-dency, as Koestler presents it, exists throughout reality; if there is a spiri-tual aspect of reality, then presumably the integrative tendency would

Introduction 5

also operate within that aspect. Thus, the theory does not seem to haveany specific implications for ontology. Of coincidences more specifically,Koestler remarks that certain of them can have

a dramatic impact which may have a lasting effect and lead toprofound changes in a person’s mental outlook—changesranging from religious conversion in extreme cases, to a mereagnostic willingness to admit the existence of levels of realitybeyond the vocabulary of rational thought.30

However, in spite of this theoretical openness to the idea of the spiritual,the center of gravity of Koestler’s writings on this subject is scientific andnot specifically concerned with issues of spirituality.

Koestler’s work was the inspiration for the first large-scale survey ofcoincidence experiences carried out in 1989 under the auspices of theKoestler Foundation.31 A questionnaire that appeared in The Observer onDecember 24, 1989, generated 991 usable responses. Examples of the ac-counts received appeared in a book by Brian Inglis in 1990,32 while the en-tire sample was coded and analyzed by Jane Henry and the results publishedin 1993.33 Concerning the types of coincidence experienced, 33 percent of the respondents accepted the characterization “prayer answering,” andsimilar numbers the characterizations “guardian angel” (34 percent) and“library angel” (30 percent).34 Concerning what factors might have ac-counted for or influenced the coincidences, 51 percent accepted “Destiny/Fate/Karma” as a possibility, 38 percent accepted “Synchronicity (Jung’stheory),” and 36 percent accepted “Divine or diabolic intervention.”35 Thesurvey was not specifically designed to elicit information regarding the spir-itual experiencing and interpretation of coincidences, but the preceding fig-ures nonetheless serve to suggest that many experiencers do view them inthis light.

Other worthwhile work on coincidence from a parapsychologicalperspective includes a book by Alan Vaughan and articles by John Beloff,Ivor Grattan-Guinness, Lila Gatlin, and Charles Tart. Also worth men-tioning in this context is a study carried out by Stephen Hladkyj whichfound that reports of synchronistic experiences shared more characteris-tics with parapsychological experiences than with mystical experiences.36

Coincidence phenomena have also attracted the attention ofFreudian psychoanalysts with an interest in parapsychology. Freud him-self published several papers dealing with “telepathy” and “occultism,” ashe referred to these phenomena.37 These papers are collected, along withother contributions, in a book edited by George Devereux.38 One contrib-


utor, Jule Eisenbud, long continued to write interestingly on this subjectfrom the psychoanalytic perspective.39 Recently, Mel Faber has developeda wholly naturalistic interpretation of synchronistic experiences based onpost-Freudian psychoanalytic insights.40 His explicit aim has been to pro-vide an alternative explanation to that offered by Jung and in particular tochallenge the spiritual interpretation of synchronicity.41

Other writers address the problem of coincidence from the per-spectives of statistics and cognitive psychology. Regarding statistics,George Spencer Brown has suggested that the apparent significance ofcoincidences and of results in parapsychology may be due simply to amistaken understanding of how statistics operate.42 The mathematiciansPersi Diaconis and Frederick Mosteller, without calling the basic princi-ples of the discipline into question, have argued that statistical consider-ations alone are able to explain away the apparent meaningfulness ofmost coincidences.43 In response it has been noted that in most real-lifecases of synchronicity there are so many imponderables that even ap-proximate evaluations of probability become dubious.44 Again, it hasbeen questioned whether it is even sensible in principle to try to evalu-ate synchronicity statistically. For example, Jung and von Franz arguethat statistics work precisely by ignoring what is unique about the indi-vidual case, whereas synchronicity tries to investigate that uniqueness.45

Others have drawn attention to problems in the very nature of statistics,including that there is no normative probability theory.46

Caroline Watt has reviewed various considerations from cognitivepsychology that demonstrate that people are generally very poor judgesof probability under the kind of conditions of uncertainty in which mostcoincidences take place and are also prone to perceive or process infor-mation erroneously.47 She notes, however, that these considerations,which are usually invoked to explain away anomalous experiences, cutboth ways and could equally explain why certain events are judged orperceived not to be anomalous when in fact they are.48

Awareness of these statistical and cognitive psychological explana-tions of putative coincidences not only can help sharpen our powers ofjudgment under uncertainty but also, through preventing us from toohastily abandoning the search for causes, can sometimes lead to the dis-covery of unrecognized causal factors. As Diaconis and Mosteller pointout, “much of scientific discovery depends on finding the cause of a per-plexing coincidence.”49 However, the statistical and cognitive psycholog-ical explanations would need to be actually proven in each particular caseif they were to invalidate the kinds of spiritual explanation or interpreta-tion that are the focus of the present study.

Introduction 7

Several writers have suggested that certain heterodox scientific the-ories, particularly those with an emphasis on holism, may be relevant toan understanding of coincidence. Two theorists whose names crop up re-peatedly are the physicist David Bohm and the plant physiologist RupertSheldrake.50 Particularly suggestive is the centrality and flexibility of theconcept of information within both Bohm’s theory of the implicate orderand Sheldrake’s hypothesis of formative causation. The concept of infor-mation also plays a role in von Franz’s speculations on the relationship ofsynchronicity to number, as well as in several other investigations into thepossible modus operandi of coincidence.51

Another emphasis in recent work on synchronicity is on narra-tive. This emphasis has informed both the collecting of accounts ofsynchronistic experiences and the manner in which they are then ana-lyzed and understood. 52

In view of the important role played by the I Ching in Jung’s devel-opment of the concept of synchronicity, it might be expected that re-searchers would already have explored this in some depth. However,apart from Jung’s own work and its immediate extension by von Franz,very little of substance seems to have been written on the subject of syn-chronicity and the I Ching. There is an article by Wayne McEvilly that at-tempts to clarify the relationship from a philosophical perspective; acouple of pertinent sinological articles—very solid and illuminating—byWillard Peterson; and an article by the psychologist and parapsychologistMichael Thalbourne and some colleagues that reports on an experimentsuggesting that a paranormal factor may be at work within the I Ching.The concept also receives attention in some of the writings on the I Chingby Stephen Karcher.53 Apart from these few studies, the relationship be-tween synchronicity and the I Ching—and even more the relationship ofsynchronicity to spirit in the light of the I Ching—has been left prettymuch as an open field for research.

A final area that the phenomenon of synchronicity has impacted onsignificantly is New Age spirituality. In a 1994 survey of subscribers tothe largest-selling New Age magazine in Britain, Kindred Spirit, 81.8 per-cent of the sample of 908 respondents reported having experienced someform of “psi,” with synchronicity as the joint-fourth most frequently ex-perienced kind of psi (40.6 percent of the sample).54 Writings that mightbe embraced by the broad term “New Age” vary greatly in quality, andmight include several of those already mentioned here with some favor.55

Often, however, it seems that references to synchronicity in the context ofNew Age spirituality are somewhat vague and intuitive, offering little inthe way of genuine enquiry or clarification.56 Certainly, they do little to


fulfill the need for a detailed exploration of the possible relationship between the concepts of synchronicity and spirit.57

The present study aims to demonstrate that the possible spiritual na-ture of synchronicity can be explicated more rigorously and to a muchgreater extent than might have been anticipated. It attempts this by ex-ploring general theoretical issues, by attending to experiencers’ responses,by interpreting specific features of synchronicities, and by investigating thesynchronistic basis of the ancient Chinese Oracle of Change, the I Ching.

In chapter 2, I first characterize and define the concept of syn-chronicity as I shall be using it in the remainder of this work. My defini-tion of synchronicity is largely based on Jung’s but involves someimportant clarifications and modifications. The discussion therefore in-volves concisely explicating Jung’s thinking about synchronicity and howit fits into his overall psychological model. I then similarly characterizeand define the concept of spirit. I consider a wide range of understandingsof spirit as found within various religious traditions, as well as withinJungian psychology and transpersonal psychology. Out of this diversity Ielaborate a fairly accommodating, largely detraditionalized, synthesissuitable for the purposes of the present study.

An attempt to elucidate the relationship between synchronicity andspirit more systematically is made in chapter 3. This involves elicitingfrom my characterization and definition of spirit a range of more specificspiritual concepts implied within it. For this I draw mostly on a variety oftwentieth-century theological writings from within the western Christiantradition, though in each case the understanding arrived at is by nomeans restricted to the Christian context. No previous attempt has beenmade to establish the possible relationship between synchronicity andspiritual concepts in such detail.

In chapter 4, the application to synchronicity of these spiritual con-cepts is illustrated by means of an extensive case study. The case studyconsists of material that has been published but, in spite of its extraordi-nary nature, does not seem previously to have caught the attention of anycommentators on synchronicity.58 Indeed, no previous study has pre-sented and commented on such an extensive series of synchronicities—certainly none has attempted to elicit from the synchronicities a com-parable range and depth of meaning. The present study especially high-lights that the content of synchronicities frequently involves symbolic andmythic motifs.

Following on from this, in chapter 5, an even more extensive bodyof synchronistic material is presented, again consisting almost exclu-sively of the experiences of one individual, whose own responses to and

Introduction 9

interpretations of the material are reported in detail. At the time of myoriginal work on it (1991–95), the material had been neither publishednor seriously studied before.59 It came to my attention through contactsin the field, and was sent to me directly by the experiencer himself. The presentation of such an extensive body of case material centering on a single individual is again unprecedented within the literature on synchronicity.

Having presented this material and the experiencer’s responses to it,I next, in chapter 6, offer my own evaluation and interpretation. My in-terpretation is attempted using a methodology analogous to that usedwithin Jungian psychology for the analysis of dreams, myths, legends,and other products of the imagination.60 So far as I am aware, this kindof analysis in relation to synchronicity has not been undertaken before.

Finally, chapter 7 looks at the possible systematization of syn-chronicity in the ancient Chinese Oracle the I Ching. A specific compari-son is made between the kind of synchronicities occurring in this relativelycontrolled context and the kind that occur more spontaneously. I look atthose of Jung’s writings that specifically relate synchronicity to the IChing; at twentieth-century Western scholarship on the I Ching; and atthe work of the Eranos I Ching Project in Switzerland (1988–94), whichcombines Jungian psychological insights with modern sinological schol-arship. The discussions in this chapter explore the relationship betweensynchronicity and the I Ching in greater detail than has been done before,and also for the first time use the I Ching as a specific framework for elu-cidating the possible relationships between synchronicity and spirit.


CHAPTER 2

SYNCHRONICITY AND SPIRIT

Synchronicity and spirit, the two core concepts in this study, are not easyto define in a way that is at once precise and comprehensive. The refer-ents of both terms are highly elusive—to the extent, indeed, that theyhave even been denied to exist at all.1 In the present chapter, therefore, Iattempt to make the referents of the two concepts more visible by offer-ing for each in turn both a broad general characterization and, set withinthis, a fairly precise working definition. These characterizations and def-initions will largely be based on established usage, but modified in thelight of my own observations and reflections and, in particular, my criti-cal engagement with Jung’s views. For the time being, the two conceptswill be treated separately. The understanding of them that emerges willthen form the background for subsequent chapters exploring their vari-ous interrelationships.

SYNCHRONICITY

Zechariah’s Horses

Consider the following incident that happened in 1973 to Stephen Jenkins,a schoolteacher in the south of England and an independent investigatorof strange phenomena. As he recounts in his book The UndiscoveredCountry, for some time he “had been pursuing a very remote enquiry, relating to the fact that in certain schools of Central Asian Buddhismprophecies and forebodings exist about the coming of a serious world cat-aclysm.”2 Being aware of the similar ideas in Christian apocalyptic litera-ture, he was led, he says, “to a lengthy and detailed comparison of theteaching of the two religions in this exceedingly esoteric field.” As part ofhis study he immersed himself in the visions of Ezekiel and Zechariah,paying special attention to Zechariah’s vision of the four horsemen with

11

their horses of red, black, dapple, and white.3 On the evening of August23, 1973, he and his wife started a holiday at the Garden House Hotel inCambridge. Jenkins describes how

at seven-fifteen I went out onto the balcony of our room, hav-ing that day completed an exhaustive study of Zechariah, andhaving noted particularly that the horses reappear as the sin-ister Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Revelation of StJohn. In the long field below the hotel were quietly grazingfour horses: red, black, dapple and white.4

Jenkins’s response to this incident indicates how improbable he consid-ered it and how powerfully he was affected by it:

The coincidence—especially when numbers, varieties and possi-ble combinations are considered—was so impressive that I pho-tographed them next day, to prove to myself more than anyoneelse that they were really there. After all, there could have beenfive, or two black ones, or a grey, or a piebald or a chestnut.5

Furthermore, on July 23, 1974, exactly eleven months after theabove incident, Jenkins relates that he was on Okehampton Common in Devon, near Yes Tor, where he had gone with a group of his schoolpupils to look at, photograph, and survey the area around a curious stonethat seemed to have been formed by the elements into a natural sculptureof a crouching bird. While they were involved in this, Jenkins turned andlooked behind him

and there, drifting over the eastern shoulder of Yes Tor, camea small herd of Dartmoor ponies. Ahead of them by a clear100 yards was a group of four: red, black, dapple and white. Icould hardly believe my eyes, and took care to photographthem, too.6

From Coincidence to Synchronicity

Uncontroversially, what Jenkins experienced here was a coincidence (or acouple of coincidences, if one considers separately the 1974 sighting ofthe four ponies). A coincidence, according to the Chambers TwentiethCentury Dictionary, is “the occurrence of events simultaneously or con-secutively in a striking manner but without any causal connection be-tween them.”7 In Jenkins’s case, one event was his reading about and


reflecting on the visionary image of four horses (or sets of horses) coloredred, black, dapple, and white.8 The second event was seeing the four cor-respondingly colored horses from his hotel balcony. Since this occurredon the same day as he was reflecting on the visionary image, it might,loosely speaking, be considered simultaneous with the first event. In thisepisode there was also a third event: seeing the four ponies (again appro-priately colored) on Okehampton Common. Happening eleven monthsafter the other two events, this can only be considered consecutive tothem, though again in a rather stretched sense of the term. Regarding thestriking manner of the occurrence, this is amply demonstrated by the factthat Jenkins says he found the events so impressive and incredible that herequired photographic testimony to persuade himself that the animals re-ally were there as he thought he saw them. As for the lack of causal con-nection between the events, on a common-sense level this too is evidentenough: Jenkins’s interest in the visionary texts neither influenced norwas influenced by the presence of the four horses in the field or the appearance later of the four ponies on Okehampton Common.

Thus, Jenkins’s experience fulfills the commonly accepted condi-tions for being termed a coincidence. Its status as something more thanjust a coincidence—as a synchronicity—depends on the presence of theadditional property of meaningfulness. Jenkins himself refers to whathappened to him as a “significant coincidence”—implying, clearly, thatthere are such things as “insignificant” or “meaningless” coincidences,from which experiences like his own can and should be differentiated.

It was Jung whose work first brought into focus the distinction be-tween meaningful and nonmeaningful coincidences and who coined theword “synchronicity” to refer to the former. Jung’s own conception ofwhat makes some coincidences meaningful and others not was deeplyrooted in his overall psychological theory, in particular his theory of ar-chetypes and the collective unconscious. However, not everyone who ac-knowledges meaningful coincidences as a distinguishable class of eventswould necessarily share Jung’s views as to what precisely constitutes theirmeaningfulness. To dissociate themselves from these theoretical under-tones, some writers have therefore tended to eschew the word “syn-chronicity” altogether unless they happen to be referring specifically toJung’s theory, using instead the more neutral term “meaningful coinci-dence” or even just “coincidence.”9 Nevertheless, a popular and widelycurrent use of the word “synchronicity” has evolved that equates it withmeaningful coincidence but leaves open the question of what constitutesthe meaningfulness.10 In the present study, the term “synchronicity” isfreely used in this latter uncommitted sense; on occasions where it appliesspecifically to Jung’s theory, this is clearly indicated by the context.

Synchronicity and Spirit 13

A Working Definition of Synchronicity

An experience such as Jenkins’s, then, is more than just a coincidence, itis a meaningful or significant coincidence and hence, in a sense of theword acceptable both to him and to the present writer, it is a synchronic-ity.11 Using Jenkins’s incident as a primary example, I now attempt firstto formulate somewhat more precisely what I take to be the defining con-ditions of a synchronistic experience and then to show a number of re-spects in which some potentially misleading assertions within the mostinfluential previous attempt at such formulation—the definitions offeredby Jung—have thereby been avoided.

A synchronistic experience, as I understand the term, is one in which

1. two or more events parallel one another through having identi-cal, similar, or comparable content;

2. there is no discernible or plausible way in which this parallelingcould be the result of normal causes;

3. the paralleling must be sufficiently unlikely and detailed as tobe notable;

4. the experience must be meaningful beyond being notable.

This definition still requires qualification and expansion, and we can conve-niently provide these by considering the definition vis-à-vis Jung’s attemptsto define synchronicity.

Jung on Synchronicity

Jung defined synchronicity in a variety of ways. Most succinctly, he de-fined it as “meaningful coincidence,”12 as “acausal parallelism,”13 or as“an acausal connecting principle.”14 More fully, he defined it as “the si-multaneous occurrence of a certain psychic state with one or more exter-nal events which appear as meaningful parallels to the momentarysubjective state.”15 An example of Jung’s will convey what he means bythese definitions as well as how the concept of synchronicity fits into hisoverall psychological model. The example concerns a young woman pa-tient whose excessive intellectuality made her “psychologically inaccessi-ble,” closed off from a “more human understanding.”16 Unable to makeheadway in analyzing her, Jung reports that he had to confine himself to“the hope that something unexpected would turn up, something thatwould burst the intellectual retort into which she had sealed herself.”17

He continues:


Well, I was sitting opposite her one day, with my back to thewindow, listening to her flow of rhetoric. She had had an im-pressive dream the night before, in which someone had givenher a golden scarab—a costly piece of jewellery. While shewas still telling me this dream, I heard something behind megently tapping on the window. I turned round and saw that itwas a fairly large flying insect that was knocking against thewindow-pane in the obvious effort to get into the dark room.This seemed to me very strange. I opened the window imme-diately and caught the insect in the air as it flew in. It was ascarabaeid beetle, or common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata),whose gold-green colour most nearly resembles that of agolden scarab. I handed the beetle to my patient with thewords, “Here is your scarab.” This experience punctured thedesired hole in her rationalism and broke the ice of her intel-lectual resistance. The treatment could now be continued withsatisfactory results.18

In this example, the psychic state is indicated by the patient’s deci-sion to tell Jung her dream of being given a scarab. The parallel externalevent is the appearance and behavior of the real scarab. The telling of thedream and the appearance of the real scarab were simultaneous. Neitherof these events discernibly or plausibly caused the other by any normalmeans, so their relationship is acausal. Nevertheless, the events paralleleach other in such unlikely detail that one cannot escape the impressionthat they are indeed connected, albeit acausally. Moreover, this acausalconnection of events both is symbolically informative (as we shall see)and has a deeply emotive and transforming impact on the patient and inthese senses is clearly meaningful.

Jung attempts to account for synchronistic events primarily in terms ofhis concept of archetypes. For this purpose, he highlights the nature of ar-chetypes as “formal factors responsible for the organisation of unconsciouspsychic processes: they are ‘patterns of behaviour.’ At the same time theyhave a ‘specific charge’ and develop numinous effects which express them-selves as affects.”19 They “constitute the structure” not of the personal but“of the collective unconscious . . . psyche that is identical in all individu-als.”20 Also relevant is that they typically express themselves in the form ofsymbolic images.21 Jung considered that synchronistic events tend to occurin situations in which an archetype is active or “constellated.”22 Such con-stellation of archetypes in the life of a person is governed by the process ofindividuation—the inherent drive of the psyche toward increased wholeness


and self-realization. Individuation in turn proceeds through the dynamic ofcompensation, whereby any one-sidedness in a person’s conscious attitudeis balanced by contents emerging from the unconscious that, if successfullyintegrated, contribute to a state of greater psychic wholeness. Relating thesepsychological dynamics to the example, Jung suggests that it has “an arche-typal foundation” and, more specifically, that it was the archetype of rebirththat was constellated.23 He writes, “Any essential change of attitude sig-nifies a psychic renewal which is usually accompanied by symbols of re-birth in the patient’s dreams and fantasies. The scarab is a classic exampleof a rebirth symbol.”24 The emotional charge or numinosity of the arche-type is evident from its having “broke[n] the ice of [the patient’s] intellectualresistance.” The compensatory nature of the experience is also clear: herone-sided rationalism and psychological stasis were balanced by an eventthat both in its symbolism and in its action expressed the power of the irra-tional and the possibility of renewal. Finally, that all of this promoted thepatient’s individuation is implied by Jung’s statement: “The treatment couldnow be continued with satisfactory results.”25

While this example and analysis illustrate Jung’s overall under-standing of the kinds of events that compose synchronicities and whatconfers the meaning that elevates mere coincidences into synchronici-ties, Jung finds it necessary to expand his definition still further. Hismost systematic attempt to pin down precisely what he understands bythe term “synchronicity” is with the following three-pronged defini-tion. An event that fits into one or another of these three categories is synchronistic:

1. The coincidence of a psychic state in the observer with a simul-taneous, objective, external event that corresponds to the psy-chic state or content (e.g., the scarab), where there is no evidenceof a causal connection between the psychic state and the exter-nal event, and where, considering the psychic relativity of spaceand time, such a connection is not even conceivable.

2. The coincidence of a psychic state with a corresponding (moreor less simultaneous) external event taking place outside the ob-server’s field of perception, i.e., at a distance, and only verifi-able afterwards.

3. The coincidence of a psychic state with a corresponding, not yetexistent future event that is distant in time and likewise canonly be verified afterwards.26

The second and third prongs of this definition are intended to capture casesin which the coinciding external event occurs either at a distance or in the


future (giving “clairvoyant” or “telepathic” and “precognitive” coinci-dences, respectively). An example of the former is Swedenborg’s famous vision in which he “saw” in detail the progress of a fire in Stockholm twohundred miles away at the same time as it was actually happening.27 An in-stance of the precognitive kind of coincidence would be the case mentionedby Jung of a student friend of his whose father had promised him a trip toSpain if he passed his final examinations satisfactorily. The friend then hada dream of seeing certain things in a Spanish city: a particular square, aGothic cathedral, and, around a certain corner, a carriage drawn by twocream-colored horses. Later, having successfully passed his examinations, heactually visited Spain for the first time and encountered all the details fromhis dream in reality.28

However, even this tripartite definition of Jung’s does not seem tocapture everything that he elsewhere considers important about syn-chronicity. For example, in each part of this definition the central notion ofmeaning has been left entirely implicit. Indeed, even if one were to make acomposite definition synthesizing all the important features in Jung’s vari-ous formulations, several major problems would remain. I now examinesome of these problems and suggest how they might be avoided by theworking definition that I have proposed. In the course of doing this a fullersense will emerge of what exactly is implied in my working definition.

The Requirement of Simultaneity

A first problem with Jung’s definitions is his repeated emphasis on simul-taneity. It is true that simultaneity—and even more so, near-simultane-ity—is one of the most commonly occurring features of events that areregistered as coincidences. However, as the third prong of Jung’s three-part definition recognizes, simultaneity is not a strictly necessary feature.I would suggest that the proximity of two or more events in time is sim-ply one of the respects in which they can parallel one another.29 The morenearly simultaneous the events are, the more that particular detail of theirparalleling contributes to their notability. It is quite possible, however,that if other kinds of detail are sufficiently impressive, the absence of evennear-simultaneity can have no serious effect on an event’s claim to coin-cidental or synchronistic status. Jenkins’s sighting of the four Dartmoorponies is a case in point. Happening eleven months after his earlier inci-dent, it is certainly not a simultaneous occurrence. However, other detailsof the event—such as that exactly the same combination of colors ofhorses was involved, that Jenkins was again engaged in a form of esotericinquiry, and perhaps that the incident happened on the same day of themonth—are sufficiently striking for a coincidence to be registered.


Indeed, in certain cases the very lack of near-simultaneity betweenevents can contribute to their coincidental status. For example, if a per-son dreams of a detailed series of events that subsequently happens in re-ality, the likelihood of there being a normal causal explanation for this isoften greater when the time interval between dream and actualization issmall, that is, when there is near-simultaneity. In such cases it could eas-ily be that the same situation that is about to evolve into the series of ac-tual events has been noticed and then imaginatively carried forward bythe dreamer’s mind into the apparently precognitive dream image. Suchextrapolation is possible by a fairly normal, if unconscious, process of in-ference. However, if the time interval between dream and actualizationwere significantly greater, the likelihood of such inference would be lessand in many cases extremely improbable. With these kinds of experi-ences, then, the further one is from simultaneity and near-simultaneity themore likely it is that what one is dealing with is a synchronicity.

Psychic and Physical; Inner and Outer

A second important difference between the definition I have offered andthose of Jung is that in the latter the coincidence is said to be between “apsychic state in the observer” and an “objective, external event,” whereasin my definition it is not specified what the nature of the parallel eventsshould be. Again, it is true that most events that are registered as mean-ingful coincidences do meet Jung’s requirement. However, it is easy tofind counterexamples. I was once having lunch with someone who, whilewe were talking, casually began making origami models out of a papernapkin—something I had not seen done for several years. Later that af-ternoon I saw a boy at a bus stop who was looking intently at a sheet ofinstructions for making origami models, one of which at least was thesame as had been made by my lunch companion (who, incidentally, laterassured me that he had not recently seen any such instructions but felt hewas acting purely spontaneously). This incident has a fair claim to beinga meaningful coincidence, but it does not obviously fit Jung’s criteria. Iwas the observer of the two events, yet the first event neither was a psy-chic state nor took place in me the observer: it was a physical event hap-pening in the environment outside of me. To be sure, by the time I sawthe second event, the first one had become internalized in me as a mem-ory, so that in that sense it was “a psychic state in the observer.” But thememory was neither active nor in any other way especially prominent inmy consciousness until the occurrence of the second event.30 Again, con-sider the case in which two acquaintances discovered that on the samenight they had dreamed (and recorded—unusually for one of them) the


same unlikely image of people involved in synchronized swimming. Thepossibility of them both having been influenced by a common factor—such as something seen on television the night before—was ruled out asfar as possible.31 Here, to be sure, the process of communication bywhich the two people learned of each other’s dream was, for both parties,inevitably an outer physical event. But the coincidence is clearly betweenthe two independent dreams, which are primarily psychic events.

I would suggest that the first event of a synchronicity could be psy-chic or physical, inner or outer, and likewise with the second and any sub-sequent events.32 However, it has to be borne in mind that with certainpossible combinations of events the plausibility of there being a normalcausal connection between them is much greater than with other combi-nations. Thus, it is theoretically possible that two inner events shouldoccur to the same person without them being causally related by any nor-mal process of suggestion or association. Within the space of a few daysone experiencer had a dream of a flock of owls, then an impression duringmeditation of a live owl, and then a daylight vision of a Greek temple withan altar surmounted by the statue of an owl.33 It is, of course, most nat-ural to assume that the impression during meditation and the daylight vi-sion were causally influenced by the earlier occurrence of the dream, orperhaps that all three appearances of the owl image were triggered by ashared normal cause such as having recently heard an actual owl or seena representation of one. But it is also possible that the three inner appear-ances of the image all arose as independent expressions of an archetypalpatterning or other form of ordering that does not operate simply from thelevel of normal psychophysical causation. As Jung acknowledges, “wecannot prove a causal connection in every case of amplification, and thusit is quite possible that in a number of cases, where we assume causal ‘association,’ it is really a matter of synchronicity.”34

Furthermore, from the point of view of a specified observer, in allthose coincidences in which the primary experiencer is someone else—which obviously includes coincidences that one hears or reads about sec-ondhand—both events are, in an important sense, external. Jenkins’sintense interest in the visionary image of the four horses was an innerevent considered from his point of view. But from the point of view ofpersons other than Jenkins, both that interest and the subsequent sightingof the four horses, in other words, the whole coincidence, was an outerevent, something that happened in the objective world independently ofthose persons’ subjective concerns and involvement. It is sometimes as-sumed that when coincidences are meaningful they are so only to theirprimary experiencer—that person supposedly being the sole authoritativejudge of whether a given coincidence means anything or not. However,


while this may be true for the specifically subjective meaning of the expe-riences, it is far from being true of every aspect of meaningfulness of theexperiences. A coincidence, no matter to whom it happens, is an event inthe collectively experienced world. As such, there are respects in whichsuch an event might be meaningful to persons other than its immediateexperiencer. To such persons, however, not experiencing the events first-hand, the coincidence is primarily an external occurrence.

Jung’s almost exclusive emphasis on coincidences involving an innerpsychic and then an outer physical event may not be entirely due to thegreater conspicuousness of this kind of coincidence. There may also be atheoretical agenda informing his emphasis. Jung’s writings on synchronic-ity are much concerned with the possible implications of the phenomenonfor our overall view of reality. In particular, he finds synchronistic experi-ences strongly supportive of a unitary view of reality; that is, the view thatpsyche and matter, in spite of their extreme differences and seeming in-commensurability, are complementary aspects of what at a deeper level isone reality. The synchronicity principle, he considers, “suggests that thereis an interconnection or unity of causally unrelated events, and thus pos-tulates a unitary aspect of being.”35 It may be that his eagerness to presentevidence in support of this unitary worldview led him to highlight thekinds of coincidences he did at the expense of other possible kinds such asthose between exclusively outer events (for example, the origami inci-dents) or exclusively inner events (for example, the parallel dreams of syn-chronized swimming).36

Relative Acausality

In the definition I have proposed it is required that there should be nodiscernible or plausible way in which the paralleling between the coin-ciding events could be the result of normal causes. This is a requirementthat the paralleling should indeed be “acausal,” but it is recognized, re-alistically, that this “acausality” is relative to the experiencer’s or ob-server’s understanding. No cause should be discernible or plausible: thisdoes not rule out the possibility of there being some indiscernible (or atleast undiscerned) and implausible cause—a cause that one can neitherperceive at present nor readily believe possible, even though it may exist.Again, the kind of cause required to be neither discernible nor plausibleis qualified as “normal.” This leaves open the possibility of there beingparanormal, transcendent, or other kinds of “nonnormal” cause. Obvi-ously, this raises problems of its own regarding how one is to distinguisha normal from a nonnormal cause, but a rough guide can be the defini-


tion of “normal cause” as one that would be recognized by practicalcommon sense and/or the current scientific consensus (insofar as theseare themselves determinable).37 The crucial point, however, is the non-absolutist nature of the “acausality” required by the definition: the dooris always left open to the possibility that what currently seems acausalmay later come to seem causal when viewed in the light of greaterknowledge or from the perspective of a worldview that recognizes para-normal and transcendent modes of causation, or even just a hierarchy oflevels of normal causation.

Charles Tart, for example, with specific reference to this problem,has proposed four further categories in addition to physical and psycho-logical causality (both observed and presumed). The first is what he callsstate-specific causality where “things that seem paradoxical and don’tmake sense in our ordinary state of consciousness may yield to causalanalysis by suitably trained practitioners who can enter the requisiteASC [altered state of consciousness].”38 Next, he recognizes the possi-bility of paranormal causality where “we observe reliable orderings(Smith tries to send telepathic messages to Jones, and Jones picks themup a significant percentage of the time), but by the currently understoodlaws of the physical [and psychological] world, these orderings could nothave come about.”39 Another possibility is that there could be being-specific synchronistic causality where “because we can get a partial, albeit inadequate, grasp of some kind of meaningful action at work . . .we postulate that there are causal factors involved, but these factors areeither so complex and/or of such a different order of reality than thehuman mind (and its instrumental aids) that they will forever [or at leastfor the time being] remain beyond the limits of our comprehension.”40

Only as his final category does Tart recognize the possibility of absolutesynchronicity where “we observe relationships between two or moreevents, but even though the events happen in a meaningful pattern, theyare not caused at any level.”41

Tart expresses doubt “whether we could distinguish in practice ab-solute synchronicity from being-specific synchronistic causality.”42 ForJung, by contrast, it is precisely this absolute synchronicity or absoluteacausality to which his definitions supposedly refer, requiring that therebe “no evidence of a causal connection between the psychic state and theexternal event, and where, considering the psychic relativity of space andtime, such a connection is not even conceivable [emphasis added].” Herethe possibility of a causal relationship between the events is excluded ab-solutely; there is no scope for increased knowledge or a shift of perspec-tive to bring causality back into the picture at some point.


Meaning and Content

The final difficulty with Jung’s definitions to which I wish to draw atten-tion here concerns the notion of meaning. The definition I have proposedrequires simply that “the experience must be meaningful beyond beingnotable”; the question of what constitutes the meaning is left open. To acertain extent this was probably also Jung’s practical understanding ofthe situation. However, the manner in which he tried to bring his ideasinto focus on a theoretical level generated at least two significant prob-lems. One is the point, already alluded to, that he grounds his under-standing of what constitutes the meaning of synchronicities in his overallpsychological theory. Inasmuch as many of the concepts central to thistheory—the collective unconscious, the archetypes, compensation, indi-viduation—are questionable at a number of points, this questionabilityinevitably transfers to his understanding of synchronistic meaning.

The second problem is the ambivalence in the way Jung uses theword “meaning.” On the one hand, it clearly refers to the significance ofthe coincidence for the experiencer (and sometimes for other observers) ei-ther personally or because of what it might be taken to imply about the na-ture of reality (for example, that reality is essentially unitary). On the otherhand, Jung also uses the word “meaning” to refer to the content that thecoinciding events have in common: they have “the same or similar mean-ing” or “appear as meaningful parallels.” This usage is basically neutralwith regard to what the coincidence might signify for an experiencer: onecould replace “meaning” in this second sense with “content” (that is, theevents have “the same or similar content,” they are “parallel in content”).It is true that the two senses of “meaning” do not exclude each other—themeaning/content can be meaningful/significant to an experiencer or ob-server—but it is equally true that they do not entail each other and it is aswell to be aware that when Jung speaks of “meaningful coincidence” therecan be this ambiguity. On occasion it may even play its part in a form ofconceptual legerdemain: a person wondering whether to accept and use theconcept of synchronicity might be persuaded differently if given to under-stand that it refers to a coincidence of two or more events that share thesame meaning/content than if given to understand that it refers to a coinci-dence that has some significance relative to human knowledge generally orto an experiencer’s or observer’s personal concerns. The source of the am-biguity probably lies in the fact that for Jung the content of any genuinesynchronicity must be archetypal and therefore also meaningful in the senseof significant. In my own usage, the meaningfulness of the coincidencerefers only to its significance; when I refer to the points of paralleling between the coinciding events, I use the word “content.”


Indefiniteness in the Proposed Working Definition

The working definition I have proposed is largely inspired by Jung’s butincludes some important qualifications and modifications that enable itto avoid the difficulties that have been mentioned. In particular, it makesno assumptions about the simultaneity of coinciding events and aboutwhether those events are physical or psychic, inner or outer. It avoidsmaking absolute statements about the acausal relationship between coin-ciding events. It distinguishes between the notability required for some-thing to be registered as a coincidence and the deeper meaning requiredfor a coincidence to be elevated into a synchronicity. And it leaves openwhat might supply that deeper meaning.

Nevertheless, within the definition I have proposed there are severalpoints of indefiniteness: for example, concerning what constitutes an“event” or “paralleling,” or who judges what is “discernible or plausi-ble,” “sufficiently unlikely and detailed,” or “meaningful.” I have al-lowed this indefiniteness rather than aimed for maximum precision inorder not to exclude from the outset any experience that might have someclaim to being synchronistic. When examining coincidences, there is al-ways scope further down the line for sharper critical evaluation and aseparating out of the stronger and more interesting experiences from theweaker and less interesting.

SPIRIT

The task of arriving at an adequate working definition of spirit is, if any-thing, even more difficult than attempting to define synchronicity. In dif-ferent traditions, and at different times within those traditions, the termsthat would be translated into English as “spirit” have carried widelyvarying meanings and nuances. In what follows I first illustrate some-thing of this diversity, referring to a variety of dictionary and ency-clopaedia entries sub verbo “Spirit” as well as to statements drawn fromtranspersonal and Jungian psychology. Informed but also cautioned bythe complexity of the picture that emerges from this brief survey, I thenstate and explain the specific emphases that I give to my own under-standing of spirit for the purposes of the present study.

Various Understandings of Spirit

The Macmillan Dictionary of Religion offers about as succinct a defini-tion of spirit as could be made without running the risk of being mislead-ingly partial: “Originally a metaphor for the ‘wind’ or ‘breath’ whereby


God creates and empowers living beings. The term has come to be used ofimmaterial entities, including the human soul.”43 Here already, at thislevel of broad summarizing, one can notice two distinct kinds of under-standing: spirit seen as an animating principle and spirit seen as a form ofentity. Regarding the metaphorical origin of the concept, this is the samein many languages: the Sanscrit atman, the Hebrew ruah, the Greekpneuma, the Latin spiritus, the Arabic ruch, and the Swahili roho, for ex-ample, all mean “breath” or “wind.”44 Not surprisingly, there are excep-tions to this metaphorical origin, notably the German word “Geist” that,according to Jung’s research, has connections with Old Norse and Gothicwords for “to rage” and “to be beside oneself”45 and “probably has moreto do with something frothing, effervescing, or fermenting.”46

A fuller characterization of the understanding of spirit as an entitycan be gained from the Concise Dictionary of Religion. In this work the“spirit or soul” is defined as something that “lives within the body, giv-ing it life and everything that is distinctively human. It is this aspect of theperson that is believed to relate to God and the religious realm.”47 Thesame entry also makes clearer what kind of “immaterial entities” theremay be besides the human soul: namely, “various spirit beings” and “thespirit of God or the Holy Spirit.”48

In the above definitions “spirit” and “soul” have been used virtu-ally interchangeably. Some of the senses in which the terms can be differ-entiated, specifically within the Jewish and Christian traditions, arediscussed in the Encyclopedia of Religion:

The English words soul and spirit are attempts to representthe two sets of ideas found in the Bible: soul is continuouswith the Hebrew nefesh and the Greek psuche, while spirit iscontinuous with the Hebrew ruah and the Greek pneuma.49

Although “the one set of ideas . . . cannot be entirely dissociated from theother,” there are notable distinctions, such as that “ruah [hence, also thederived New Testament understanding of pneuma, spirit] . . . does nothave the quasi-physical connotation that nefesh [and, hence, also psuche,soul] has.”50

The New Catholic Encyclopedia distills a general philosophicalcharacterization of spirit as

any reality that in its nature, existence, and activity is intrinsi-cally independent of matter, is not subject to determinationsof time and space, is not composed of parts spatially distinct


from one another, and is, or is related to, an original source ofsuch activities as are centered on being under the universal as-pects of truth, goodness, and beauty.51

For various thinkers, the entry continues, “spirit is primarily identifiedeither with reality as a whole in its inner nature (spiritualistic monism),with an objective order of transcendent realities (Platonism), or with im-personal and collective realms of being (values, group spirits).”52 In ad-dition to and distinction from these more impersonal characterizations,the same work maintains that within Christianity “spirit is always per-sonal and subjective, and all other manifestations of spirit can be re-duced to their source in the person.”53 (Hence, in part, presumably, thetendency to coalesce the terms “spirit” and “soul.”) However, evenwithin the broadly shared assumptions of this one tradition there hasbeen scope for a wide range of more specific characterizations. Thus,“the radical and essential manifestation of spirit has been variously sin-gled out as: creative activity, self-consciousness, interiority or subjectiv-ity, intelligence, reason, knowledge of universals, love, freedom, andcommunication (dialogue).”54

Attempts have been made by some perennialist thinkers to move be-yond the terms of any particular tradition and to find a more universal def-inition of spirit. On the whole, these thinkers tend to emphasize the moreabsolutist characterizations and to express themselves in apophatic, para-doxical, and transcendentally colored language. The transpersonal psychol-ogist Ken Wilber, for example, professedly representing the consensus bothof the major world religions and of the great mystics and philosophersthroughout the ages, Eastern and Western alike, describes “absolute Spirit”as “radiant and all-pervading, one and many, only and all—the complete in-tegration and identity of manifest Form with the unmanifest Formless”;55

elsewhere as “universal . . . beyond body and mind . . . transverbal,transegoic, transindividual . . . a point where the soul touches eternity andcompletely transcends the prison of its own involvement”;56 and again as“nondual awareness or unity consciousness . . . the height of transcendence. . . also purely immanent . . . present equally and totally in each and everyobject, whether of matter, body, mind, or soul.”57

A couple of phenomenologically sensitive discussions of the conceptof spirit, recapitulating and extending much of what I have already cov-ered, occur in Jung’s two essays “Spirit and Life” (1926) and “The Phe-nomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales” (1945/1948).58 “Is not the word‘spirit’ a most perplexingly ambiguous term?” Jung asks near the begin-ning of the first of these essays; then explains:


The same verbal sign, spirit, is used for an inexpressible, tran-scendental idea of all-embracing significance; in a more com-monplace sense it is synonymous with “mind”; it mayconnote courage, liveliness, or wit, or it may mean a ghost; itcan also represent an unconscious complex that causes spiri-tualistic phenomena like table-turning, automatic writings,rappings, etc. In a metaphorical sense it may refer to the dom-inant attitude in a particular social group—the “spirit” thatprevails there. Finally [and Jung stresses that this is not ajoke], it is used in a material sense, as spirits of wine, spirits ofammonia, and spirituous liquors in general.59

Later in the same essay he emphasizes that spirit can also be understood as“the image of a personified affect” or as “the reflection of an autonomousaffect”;60 and that “in its strongest and most immediate manifestations itdisplays a peculiar life of its own which is felt as an independent being.”61

He distances himself from the kind of perennialist characterization men-tioned above by maintaining that “[t]here are many spirits, both light anddark. We should, therefore, be prepared to accept the view that spirit isnot absolute, but something relative that needs completing and perfectingthrough life.”62

The opening pages of “The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy-tales” offer an even more extensive account of the “wide range of appli-cation” of the term “spirit,” presented in a series of sometimes explicitand sometimes implicit contrasts. 63 Jung summarizes his account as hav-ing described “an entity which presents itself to us as an immediate psy-chic phenomenon distinguished from other psychisms whose existence isnaïvely believed to be causally dependent upon physical influences.”64

He identifies the “hallmarks of spirit” as “firstly, the principle of spon-taneous movement and activity; secondly, the spontaneous capacity to produce images independently of sense perception; and thirdly, the autonomous and sovereign manipulation of these images.”65

A Working Definition of Spirit

The preceding discussion demonstrates the extraordinary diversity ofways the concept of spirit can be understood, many of which cannotreadily be squared with one another. There are several strategies onecould adopt in order to try to account for and orient oneself within thiscomplexity. One could simply favor some understandings of the term anddismiss the others as either wrong or irrelevant to the purposes in hand.More embracingly, one could introduce a concept of the evolution either


of the term “spirit” or of the manifestation of the reality of spirit—or in-deed of our understanding of either of these—and then attribute differentusages to different stages in this evolutionary development.66 Or again,one could emphasize that spirit transcends and therefore cannot ade-quately be grasped within verbal concepts—the most one can do being tocharacterize its various facets and modes of manifestation, accept the ap-parent contradictions and paradoxes that emerge, and offer the totality ofthis many-sided characterization as one’s best approximation to a verbaldepiction of spirit.67 The strategy adopted in what follows is a combina-tion of the above suggestions. Out of the range of possible understand-ings and nuances of the term “spirit” I focus specifically on those whichbest serve the purposes at hand. I do this in the belief that some under-standings are indeed—for reasons that one might want to consider “evo-lutionary”—more relevant than others in the context of contemporaryknowledge. And I fully acknowledge that my characterization is only anapproximation, limited by the inherently paradoxical and inexhaustiblenature of the concept of spirit. This said, I also believe that approximatecharacterizations can be made that are worthwhile.

My working definition of spirit, then, is the following: Spirit is oneof the major differentiable and experienceable aspects of an overall con-tinuum of consciousness and reality, together with, but of greater subtletythan, the physical and psychic. A fuller characterization of the term canbe arrived at by spelling out some of the implications of this definition—a task that will occupy the remainder of this chapter.

Spirit as One Aspect of a Continuum

Spirit has been defined as an aspect of a continuum. In specifying that thecontinuum is of consciousness and reality it is meant that each of the con-stituents of the continuum—the physical, the psychic, and the spiritual—is being considered an aspect both of every individual person and of theworld as it exists independently of any individual person. For conve-nience I will henceforth often subsume both of these ideas under the oneterm “reality.” Further, although I have specified three aspects of the con-tinuum, I recognize that subtler distinctions could be made: for example,into five aspects (matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit), or even into seven,nine, or more aspects.68 In particular, one might want to introduce theconcept of the divine, either as itself an additional aspect situated, as itwere, beyond the spiritual, or else as the ground of all the other aspects.69

However, for the purposes of this study the tripartite differentiationshould suffice, since spirit can be adequately defined in relation to thepsychic and the physical.


On a common-sense level, the physical and the psychic are readilyrecognizable and distinguishable from each other. One can recognizesuch physical things as books, rivers, and birds, on the one hand, andsuch psychic things as memories, feelings, and thoughts on the other; andone can distinguish the two categories as in certain fundamental respectsdifferent from each other. Spirit is another such broad category andmight include such things as inherent patterns of order, beauty, and in-telligibility in reality; moments of creativity, insight, or unitive awarenessin an individual; also senses of otherness, freedom, love, and so on.70

Though categorially different, spirit stands in continuity with thepsychic and physical. Just as there are ambivalent zones of transition be-tween the inanimate and the animate, and between the biological and thepsychological, which suggest that these categories phase into one anotherand therefore may exist as aspects of a continuum; so there are features ofpsychic functioning that may be considered to phase into the specificallyspiritual.71 For example, it is often very difficult in practice to differenti-ate between the contributions made to the solution of a critical problem(in whatever discipline or area of life) by the normal psychic processes ofdeduction and inference and by the (as I understand it) spiritual processof insight. The continuum that is being postulated here—a kind of spec-trum: from physical to psychic to spiritual72—is characterized by increas-ing subtlety of “substance” and operation and consequently also byincreasing difficulty of observation and quantification. Physical objectscan be easily observed and accurately measured, and they are relativelystable. Psychic forms are generally only measurable, if at all, in terms oftheir frequency and the subjectively evaluated intensity or vividness oftheir manifestations, and they tend to be evanescent and very difficult toobserve. In turn, spiritual contents (for example, moments of insight orcreativity) are notoriously difficult to observe or quantify at all. They areas shifting and invisible—and yet as pervasive in their influence—as theroot metaphor of the word “spirit” (as “breath” or “wind”) might leadone to expect.

Viewing spirit as one of the major distinguishable aspects of a sin-gle continuum of reality respects both its similarities to and differencesfrom psyche and matter. It is undoubtedly partly because of the clear sim-ilarities on certain points that some thinkers have tried to reduce or as-similate spirit to psyche and/or matter; while it will have been the no lessobvious differences that led others to postulate a fundamental separationand opposition, and for this to be sustained by common languageusage.73 The concept of a continuum enables these apparently incompat-ible positions to be appreciated together.


Some Differentiating Attributes of Spirit

Among the differentiating attributes of spirit one might include the follow-ing. First, manifestations of spirit are generally characterized by numinos-ity, with all the qualities implicit in this term: otherness, awefulness,overpoweringness, urgency, fascination—in general, a distinctive prera-tional and transrational emotional charge.74 This was especially noted byJung who, as we have seen, observed that spirit could be characterized as“the reflection of an autonomous affect.”75

Another way in which spirit is distinguishable from psyche or mat-ter is in its ability to transgress the usual limitations of these other fieldsof reality. The activity of spirit, it seems, is not bound by the same “laws”of time, space and causality that generally operate physically; nor even bythe more fluid expressions of these principles within the psychic do-main.76 Having said this, I do not believe one therefore necessarily has to go so far as to speak of timelessness, spacelessness, and acausality—except perhaps in a relative sense. After all, there could be orders of tem-poral, spatial, and causal relationship that, while not comprehensiblefrom the normal psychophysical perspective, would be so from the per-spective of a consciousness oriented more fully within spirit. The impor-tant point here is simply that spiritual activities are characterized by theirability to transgress some of the apparent “laws” or principles governingevents as we normally experience them psychophysically.

This can be further appreciated in terms of the experience of unity.From the perspective of spirit, the division that is usually experienced inconsciousness between subject and object, observer and observed, can beperceived to break down and be replaced by a more holistic mode ofawareness in which the deeper identity of subject and object comes to beappreciated.77 It may be that if one were totally centered within the spiri-tual aspect of consciousness, this observer–observed unity would itself beexperienced as total, as claimed by certain mystics.78 However, there seemsno reason why spiritual consciousness of this kind should not coexist withnormal psychophysical consciousness so that, while unitive awareness ispresent, it is not all-absorbing but remains accompanied by dualistic con-sciousness. One could argue that such simultaneously unitive and dualisticawareness would be a more accurate reflection of the totality of conscious-ness, more truly holistic, than would be unitive awareness alone.

Another indication of spirit’s categorial distinctiveness is its capacityfor repatterning or restructuring contents within the fields of the psychicand physical. For example, within a moment of creativity an artist bringsinto being among his or her materials and ideas an aesthetic relationship


that did not exist before and could not have been simply extrapolatedfrom what already did exist. Similarly a scientist, in a moment of insight,will see a way of making greater sense out of existing data and theory—and yet this new understanding could not have been arrived at by normalprocesses of inference or deduction from that existing data and theory. Oragain, a person might undergo an ethical transformation without this dis-cernibly being the result of any conscious effort to control behavior or be-liefs. In each of these cases, a factor additional to the recognized physicaland psychic contents seems to have entered the picture, providing the newperspective or vantage point and thereby enabling the restructuring of thepsychophysical to take place.

The seemingly intelligent, informative, meaningful nature of thiscreative and insightful restructuring implies that the workings of spiritare, or at least can be, highly purposive.79 Again, that such moments can-not, in general, be called on at will suggests that spirit is autonomous. Aswe saw, spontaneity and autonomy have been emphasized as attributes ofspirit by Jung. On this point one can observe that the notoriously unpre-dictable phenomenon of inspiration is designated by a word that carriesthe same root meaning as “spirit” (that is, “breath,” “wind”).

Interpenetration of the Psychophysical

Although in various crucial respects distinguishable from psyche andmatter and able to operate on them as if from a superior vantage point,spirit can also be characterized as interpenetrating and interfused with thepsychic and the physical. This is implicit in the ability of spirit to expressitself within the medium of the psychophysical. It also accords withWilber’s definition of spirit as “all-pervading,” “present equally and to-tally in each and every object, whether of matter, body, mind, or soul.”However, whereas Wilber also believes that spirit, including one’s ownconsciousness as spirit, can subsist in a state totally independent of psy-che and matter,80 it seems to me unnecessary, and perhaps unwarranted,to make that further claim. As an aspect of a single continuum of reality,spirit may be more or less the center of one’s attention at any given time,but even when seemingly dominating one’s field of awareness it wouldprobably still be bound up with the other aspects of the continuum. Mys-tics who claim to have entered states of pure spirit, because of the veryfact that they registered the experience and subsequently returned to tellthe tale, must have remained connected in some important way to theirpsyches and bodies. Indeed, it could be the case that spirit, rather thanjust being capable of interfusing psyche and matter, is incapable of notbeing in some sense interfused with them.


Ontological and Epistemological Parity with the Psychophysical

It is sometimes maintained that, because spirit can operate on the psychicand physical and is not reducible to them, in some important sense spiritis ontologically and/or epistemologically superior to the psychic andphysical. It is “realer” and gives access to knowledge that is “truer,”81

since it is situated at a higher level in the “Great Chain of Being.”82 Itmay be that there are senses in which such a hierarchical understanding isappropriate,83 but this does not necessarily entail superiority. When oneis aware of the spiritual aspect of reality, for example, when one is com-prehending something with a degree of insight, one may consider oneselfto be in touch with a more universal and enduring level of being andknowledge. However, under a different worldview—materialism, for in-stance—this priority could easily be reversed, with the greatest degree ofreality and knowability being accorded to the physical. Certainly, thereare respects in which the more spiritual aspects of consciousness seem tobe superior to the more material and psychic aspects (for example, wheninsight puts order into existing data and theory). Equally, however, thereare respects in which the material or psychic aspects might be consideredto be superior to the spiritual (for example, in terms of stability, practi-cal utility, and susceptibility to measurement). The spiritual aspect of re-ality has properties that the psychic and physical aspects lack; but equallythe psychic and physical aspects have properties that the spiritual aspectlacks. It may be that the sets of properties are complementary, even mu-tually dependent; but at any rate I see no reason for elevating one setabove the others rather than seeing them all as integral and equal aspectsof one reality. In the present study, therefore, I do not wish to align my-self with any orientation that gives priority to one aspect of reality at theexpense of the others, but rather to respect, as much as possible, thewhole field of experience and to accord equal, though differing, ontolog-ical and epistemological status to each of its aspects.

Direct Experience of Spirit

Finally, as has already been implied several times, spirit, as I wish to un-derstand the term, refers to something that can be directly experienced.A further idea of what kind of direct experiencing I mean can be gainedby referring once again to the experiences of creativity in the arts and in-sight in the sciences; also to such experiences as the perception of beauty,moments of unitive awareness, or connection with a deep sense of ob-jective meaning or intelligibility in reality. None of these, as experienced,


readily lends itself to reduction in physical and/or psychic terms. In rela-tion to one’s consciousness, these qualities of creativity, insight, beauty,unity, and intelligibility can be experienced in several ways: as an aspectof one’s consciousness; as an aspect of the world independently of(though perhaps including or corresponding to) one’s consciousness; orin the form of a seemingly autonomous being (a “spirit”), again inde-pendent of one’s consciousness.

Jung and the Direct Experience of Spirit

It might be thought that one could easily co-opt Jung as a supporter ofthe view that spirit can be directly experienced. For he frequently empha-sizes the importance of direct religious or spiritual experience as opposedto reliance on dogma and faith.84 However, when Jung focuses on whatare actually experienced in religious and spiritual experiences, he stressesthat these are, and must be, psychic phenomena, for “the sole immediatereality is the psychic reality of conscious contents.”85 Nevertheless, I be-lieve that Jung’s cautious view of the possibility of directly experiencingspirit is unnecessary even within the terms of his own thinking, as I nowhope to show.

“We live immediately only in a world of images.”86 In this brief sen-tence is contained the essence of Jung’s view concerning the epistemolog-ical status of matter, psyche, and spirit. Throughout his writings Jungcomfortably uses each of these terms: he is not a materialist, denying re-ality to psyche and spirit; nor is he an idealist who considers material andpsychic forms to be transient illusions; nor, in his advocacy of the psychicperspective, does he deny real existence to matter on the one hand or tospirit on the other. He accepts and uses all these terms. “I do not con-test,” he writes, “the relative validity of the realistic standpoint . . . or ofthe idealistic standpoint . . . ; I would only like to unite these extreme op-posites by . . . the psychological standpoint.”87 However, what this unit-ing amounts to is the location or centering of human consciousnesswithin the psychic aspect of reality alone.

Jung argues that even if we accept the reality of the physical world,everything we know about it is mediated to our consciousness in the formof impressions and images that are psychic phenomena. It is these imagesof which we are directly conscious. We infer the existence of the physicalworld as what must have given rise to the images, but we do not experi-ence that physical world directly. “Even physical pain,” he writes, “is apsychic image which I experience . . . my sense impressions—for all thatthey force upon me a world of impenetrable objects occupying space—


are psychic images, and these alone constitute my immediate experience,for they alone are the immediate objects of my consciousness.”88 Again:

We are in truth so wrapped about by psychic images that wecannot penetrate at all to the essence of things external to our-selves. All our knowledge consists of the stuff of the psychewhich, because it alone is immediate, is superlatively real.89

The same is true in the case of the spiritual aspect of reality. Even if weaccept that this exists and that it is responsible for certain experiences wemay have—of illumination, creativity, beauty, senses of presence—Jungwould argue that it is actually the psychic effects that we experience di-rectly. The hypothetical source of these effects—spirit itself—can only beknown indirectly as an inference. Jung gives the example of being “besetby the fear that a ghost will appear.” In such an experience, he says, “myfear of the ghost is a psychic image from a spiritual source. . . . As for thespiritual process that underlies my fear of the ghost, it is as unknown tome as the ultimate nature of matter.”90

When this epistemological emphasis is applied to the more specifi-cally religious and sacred areas of experience, it can easily appear, as Ed-ward Whitmont observes, that Jung is attempting “to substitute ‘psyche’,‘soul’, or ‘contents of the psyche’ for the divine or spiritual reality ‘outthere’ . . . to substitute the subjectively human for the objectively tran-scendent, or at least to treat the latter as if it were a mere epiphenomenonof the former.”91 Nevertheless, as Whitmont goes on to note, “this wasdecidedly not Jung’s belief or intent”—the impression Jung misleadinglycreates being due to “ambiguities of terminology, and even attitude.”92

Whitmont suggests a number of possible reasons for this ambiguityconcerning the reality of the spiritual. One is Jung’s “suspicions about theology, colored by the problematic relationship to his father, a theolo-gian.”93 Compounding this would have been “the need to be accepted byfellow scientists of the late nineteenth century with its Cartesian and posi-tivistic bias.”94 Another reason may have been the “introverted bias” thatwas a feature both of Jung’s personality and of the psychological system hedeveloped. This bias “expresses itself in . . . an ambiguous terminology inrespect to psyche and projection” that “fails to make a clear distinction be-tween the psyche as a vehicle of experience and the non-psychic object ‘outthere’ even though that object be endowed with formal qualities, inten-tionality, and spirit of its own.”95

However, the most significant reason for Jung’s ambiguities of ter-minology and attitude regarding spirit was his self-professed adherence to


Kantian epistemology. Put briefly, Kant argued that we are only able toexperience things as they appear to us (as “phenomena”) and that theseappearances are inevitably preorganized by the inherent structuring dis-positions of our mind (a priori categories of understanding). What thingsare like in themselves (as “noumena”) Kant claimed we have no way ofknowing. Of particular significance within this view is the implicationthat we cannot have direct knowledge of God or the soul or of any otheralleged spiritual realities.96

Throughout his life Jung repeatedly and consistently stated his ad-herence to this epistemological viewpoint of Kant’s. Indeed, as Stephaniede Voogd points out, he always implicitly and sometimes explicitly re-ferred to it as “the theory of knowledge”—as though there could be noalternative theories.97 For Jung, believing himself to be following Kant,all that we can experience and know directly are psychic images, things asthey appear to consciousness, “phenomena.” What gives rise to thosepsychic images—matter in itself, spirit in itself—these cannot be directlyexperienced or known; they are “noumena.” In particular, Jung thoughtthat his distinction between the archetypal ideas or images that we actu-ally experience and the irrepresentable archetype as such that hypotheti-cally gives rise to those ideas and images was a straightforward mirroringof Kant’s distinction between the phenomenal and the noumenal.

If this mirroring were as straightforward as Jung supposed, it wouldin fact play into the hands of his critics. For, as de Voogd observes, “solong as the distinction is maintained between a noumenal X and a psychicX, the noumenal X is going to sound like the real thing and the psychic Xlike its poor copy.”98 However, it has been argued that Jung’s epistemo-logical formulations are not as close to Kant’s as he believed and mayeven have implications that could help to dissolve Kant’s worldview. DeVoogd, for example, suggests that “Jung’s archetypal psychology impliesan epistemological stance which renders the noumena–phenomena dis-tinction wholly unnecessary.”99 This distinction, she argues, could be dis-solved by undertaking “an evaluation of Kant’s epistemology in terms ofesse in anima [psychological existence], an exercise aimed at seeingthrough to the fantasies at work in the Critique of Pure Reason.”100 Todo this would provide a perspective on and understanding of Kant’s epis-temology that would be an alternative to Kant’s own rational under-standing—not necessarily dispensing with or invalidating Kant’s view,but compensating for its one-sidedness.101

Jung’s claim to be adhering to a Kantian epistemology has also beenchallenged, from a different angle, by Wolfgang Giegerich.102 Accordingto Giegerich, Jung believed that


it would suffice to pay his toll to Kant simply by constantly as-suring us that all his theoretical statements (about archetypes,synchronicity, the autonomous psyche, the psychoid, etc.) werenot intended as metaphysical statements, but only as hypothe-ses, models or the like and that he was, e.g., not speaking aboutGod himself, but only about the God image in the psyche.103

However, Jung himself clearly saw through “the illusion that by calling,e.g., psychological powers ‘moods,’ ‘nervousness,’ ‘delusional ideas’—inshort ‘symptoms’ instead of ‘Gods’ or ‘daimones’—anything would bechanged as to the reality of these powers.”104 In other words, Jung’squasi-empirical terminology is something of a mask: “it does not makeany real difference whether we assert that we are speaking ‘only’ aboutthe God image in the soul or whether we believe we are speaking aboutGod himself. In either way we speak about God.”105 Within Kant’s epis-temology, by contrast, Jung’s “hypotheses” and “models” would stillcarry the logical status of metaphysical statements, and so would be re-fused the “empirical” status Jung repeatedly claimed for them: “As longas Jung clings to his label ‘empiricist first and last,’ Kant would show himthat he has no right to posit, for example, a psychoid archetypal level inwhich the subject-object dichotomy would be overcome.”106

Giegerich’s further argument is that Jung effectively “paid Kantonly a token toll”;107 his repeated tributes are a defense “to shield theprecious contents of his inner life against the full impact of Kant’s in-sights.”108 The reason for this defensiveness is that “Jung, not havinggone all the way through Kant, could not imagine that there might beland beyond Kant.”109

Giegerich agrees with de Voogd that Jung’s insights are profounderand more far-reaching in their implications than Jung’s own consciousformulations of them usually allow. “Whenever [Jung] exercized con-scious control over his theorizing,” Giegerich suggests, “and intended tobe critical, he wanted to freeze his amazing psychological insights on thelogically lowest level, the ontic level of ‘empirical findings.’”110

Whitmont likewise takes exception to this unnecessary distortingand obscuring by Jung of his own insights. He argues that Jung clearlydid believe in the perception by the psyche of nonpsychic events. “Para-psychological research into the psi factor,” he notes, appealing, by wayof example, to evidence that Jung himself would accept, “has demon-strated conclusively that we do perceive by means of extra-sensory psychic perception both subjective states of others as well as objec-tive, non-psychic events (space-time, distant events and actions).”111


However, rather than treating these nonpsychic events as nonpsychic,Jung is forced by his “inadequate definitions and epistemology con-cerning ‘soul’ and ‘psyche’” to consider them too as psychic.112 The re-sult of this is that “the meaning of these terms [‘soul’ and ‘psyche’]becomes easily over-extended.”113 Thus, in particular, “the term ‘real-ity of the psyche’, which Jung uses for the ‘objective’ or ‘transpersonal’psyche, extends the accustomed meaning of psychic reality towardtranspersonal events.”114 Whitmont concedes that “the transpersonalobjects of experience might better be called powers, energies, arche-types, dynamics, or psychoid factors—if we must avoid speaking ofGods and daimons,” but he adds emphatically that “at any rate, theyare to be regarded as experiences sui generis.”115

What emerges from this is that there is a category of experiences,distinguishable in its own right, that has traditionally been called spiri-tual and that one can indeed call psychic but only at the cost of ex-panding the meaning of this latter term until it is able to assimilate whathas traditionally been meant by the spiritual. Thus, when Jung claimsthat “the sole immediate reality is the psychic reality of conscious con-tents” he is in effect making a semantic point only, based on an arbi-trary decision to designate as psychic what used to be called spiritual.116

Inasmuch as “psychic” appears simply to be the word he has chosen torefer to anything immediately experienced, his claim ultimately seems tobe tautological.

However, it is clear that, no matter how misguided, Jung’s Kan-tianism and his epistemological efforts in general were attempting to ar-ticulate something of importance. This would seem to be that ourperceptions of the physical and spiritual aspects of reality inescapably in-volve a psychic component that renders those perceptions to some extentsubjective. Our inherent psychological limitations cause us to subjectivizeand anthropomorphize our experiences, so that purely objective experi-ence of reality is not possible. However, as Whitmont again points out,admitting the “psychological limitation of our subjective perception” isnot necessarily incompatible with acknowledging that what one is per-ceiving is objective being. “Our anthropomorphizing experiences of thetranspersonal and its qualities” could, he suggests, “more appropriatelybe called symbolic perceptions”: “Symbolic perception acknowledges ob-jective being as perceived in subjective terms.”117 Thus, it makes perfectsense to speak of spiritual reality as being directly experienced, so longas one recognizes that such spiritual experience is likely to be colored bythe psyche. Being colored by the psyche, however, is something very dif-ferent from being only psyche.118


Self-Revelation of Spirit

Before concluding this discussion of spirit one further important pointneeds to be made. The preceding has offered a conscious characterizationof spirit. As was pointed out earlier, this is not entirely satisfactory, sincespirit eludes definition in conscious conceptual terms: hence, the para-doxical, metaphorical, and apophatic language of the mystics.119 Jung inparticular is aware of this problem: “how can we bring within the orbitof our thought those limitless complexes of facts which we call ‘spirit’and ‘life’ unless we clothe them in verbal concepts, themselves mere coun-ters of the intellect?”120 He suggests that

when the idea or principle involved is inscrutable, when its in-tentions are obscure in origin and in aim and yet enforcethemselves, then the spirit is necessarily felt as an independentbeing, as a kind of higher consciousness, and its inscrutable,superior nature can no longer be expressed in the concepts ofhuman reason. Our powers of expression then have recourseto other means; they create a symbol.121

The symbol “points beyond itself to a meaning that is darkly divined”and thereby “describes in the best possible way the dimly discerned na-ture of the spirit.”122 But in what manner is this symbol created? The wayJung frames his answer to this implicit question is particularly interesting:“because of its original autonomy, about which there can be no doubt inthe psychological sense, the spirit is quite capable of staging its own man-ifestations spontaneously.”123 Jung considers two kinds of this, as he callsit, “self-revelation of spirit”:124 dreams and fairytales.125 In each case,spontaneously arisen symbols are considered to reveal aspects of the na-ture of spirit that in important ways supplement and modify one’s con-scious conception of it. In later chapters of this study (especially chapter6) I explore the possibility that synchronicities—the content of which, aswe shall see, is also often symbolic—may be another form of such “self-revelation of spirit.”


yanulada


CHAPTER 3

THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION OFSPONTANEOUS SYNCHRONICITIES

In this chapter I aim to establish in greater detail the main points of rela-tionship between spirit and synchronicity by looking more closely at anumber of spiritual concepts that can be readily extrapolated from mydefinition and characterization of spirit—concepts that represent, as itwere, specific facets of or perspectives onto spirit. The spiritual conceptswhose relationships to synchronicity I shall discuss are numinosity,miraculousness, transformation, unity, transcendence and immanence,providence, and revelation. Naturally, my treatment of each of thesemajor concepts, as well as of their many interrelationships, can only bepartial. There are also many concepts that could have been explored but,because of limited space and my own limited knowledge, they have hadto be omitted—for instance, such Eastern concepts as Tao, karma, or de-pendent origination. However, my intention is for the following selectionand discussion to be illustrative rather than exhaustive or fully represen-tative. It will be sufficient if by the end of the chapter this selection hasserved to show the mutually illuminating congruence of synchronicityand spirit.

NUMINOSITY: MYSTERIUMTREMENDUM ET FASCINANS

Numinosity was mentioned in the previous chapter as one of the specificattributes by which spirit can be differentiated from psyche and matter.We also saw that numinosity is one of the characteristic features of syn-chronicity for Jung.1 However, given that the term “numinous” has cometo be used often in a rather loose way to refer simply to any kind of pow-erful emotional charge or affect, it is worth showing that, as originally

39

understood by Rudolf Otto, it can be related to synchronicity veryclosely. To demonstrate this, I shall bypass the considerable secondary lit-erature that has accumulated on the topic of the numinous and focus sim-ply on Otto’s writings.

Otto introduced the term “numinous” in his book Das Heilige(1917; translated into English as The Idea of the Holy, 1923) to refer tothe irreducible nonrational and nonethical aspect in the idea of God or“the holy.”2 In his own words, the numinous is “a special term to standfor ‘the holy’ minus its moral factor or ‘moment,’ and . . . minus its ‘ra-tional’ aspect altogether.”3 A numinous experience, therefore, is one inwhich or through which this nonrational, nonmoral aspect of the holy isdirectly apprehended. According to Otto, “the nature of the numinouscan only be suggested by means of the special way in which it is reflectedin the mind in terms of feeling.”4 However, the numinous object, that is,the numen itself, the nonrational aspect of the holy, should not be mis-taken for the numinous experience. The latter is an effect of the former,its manifest expression. The numinous is not something merely subjectivebut is “felt as objective and outside the self.”5

According to Otto, in discussing the numinous “we are dealing withsomething for which there is only one appropriate expression, mysteriumtremendum.”6 He elucidates the idea of the numinous by analyzing thecomponent words in this expression. Implicit in tremendum he finds the qualities of “awefulness,” “overpoweringness,” and “urgency.”7 Theterm “mysterium” he considers to refer to a reality that is “whollyother,”8 that is, “quite beyond the sphere of the usual, the intelligible,and the familiar.”9 The adjective “tremendum” emphasizes the moredaunting qualities of the mysterium. In addition to these, Otto draws at-tention also to the more attractive quality of “fascination.”10 “These twoqualities,” he remarks, “the daunting and the fascinating, now combinein a strange harmony of contrasts” resulting in a “dual character of thenuminous consciousness.”11 Because of this additional quality of fascina-tion, Otto’s key expression is sometimes expanded to mysterium tremen-dum et fascinans.

If we consider these component elements of numinosity in more de-tail, we can see that Otto’s characterization of each of them brings outqualities that are also readily discernible within synchronistic experiences.Departing from the sequence of Otto’s analysis, let us consider first themysterium, that which is experienced as being “wholly other.”Otto men-tions two ways in which “this feeling or consciousness of the ‘whollyother’” can be evoked by an object or experience.12 One way is if the ob-ject or experience, while being perfectly natural, is nonetheless “puzzling”or “of a surprising or astounding character; such as extraordinary phe-


nomena or astonishing occurrences.”13 Otto suggests that, in this kind ofcase, consciousness of the wholly other is not intrinsic to the natural ob-jects or experiences themselves but is only evoked by them indirectlythrough association with other kinds of feeling and consciousness whichare intrinsic to natural experiences, these latter kinds of feeling and con-sciousness being similar to but nonetheless qualitatively different fromconsciousness of the wholly other.14 In other words, natural experiencesare not in themselves capable of evoking genuine consciousness of thewholly other; when they appear to do so, it is simply through association.However, it is also possible for consciousness of the wholly other to beevoked in a second way, namely, directly. This happens through an expe-rience or object that “has no place in our scheme of reality but belongs toan absolutely different one, and which at the same time arouses an irre-pressible interest in the mind”; in other words, an experience or objectthat is “supernatural.”15 Otto illustrates this by referring to the effect onus of stories about ghosts, which are such “supernatural” objects.16

Synchronicities are clearly capable of evoking consciousness of thewholly other in the first of these ways: they involve contingent eventsnone of which in itself need be impossible, hence they can be considerednatural occurrences; and the qualities of being to some degree “extraor-dinary” and “astonishing” are implied in their inherent notability. How-ever, synchronicities may also be able to evoke consciousness of thewholly other in the second of the ways mentioned—that is, directly—inasmuch as it is also possible to view synchronicities as supernatural occurrences. Considering not the individual events composing the syn-chronicity but the composite event of the synchronicity itself, we perceivethe existence of a kind of relationship—a relationship of meaningfulacausal paralleling—that, according to our usual understanding of thenatural course of things, should not exist, and that is, therefore, arguably“supernatural.” This characteristic of synchronicities is most conspicuousin cases that take the form of apparently paranormal events: clairvoyant,telepathic, psychokinetic, or precognitive synchronicities. However, it isalso implicit in all other synchronicities simply by virtue of the fact thatthey involve meaningful acausal paralleling. It appears, then, that the feel-ing or consciousness evoked by synchronicity may not just be similar tothe feeling or consciousness of the wholly other but may have fulfilledOtto’s conditions for actually being that feeling or consciousness.

Turning next to the components of the adjective “tremendum,” wehave to consider whether synchronistic experiences can exhibit the qual-ities of awefulness, overpoweringness, and urgency. At first sight thesethree terms seem too strong to be applied to the majority of synchronici-ties. Certainly such experiences can have their daunting aspect, but this

The Spiritual Dimension of Spontaneous Synchronicities 41

normally takes the form of a fairly mild disturbance rather than the sortof extreme disturbance suggested by the three terms. However, as Ottomakes clear, what is most important in the ascription of these three termsis the quality of the experience in question, not its degree of intensity.Awefulness, for example, has not so much to do with natural fear, how-ever intense, as with a sense of “uncanniness”:

The awe or “dread” may indeed be so overwhelmingly greatthat it seems to penetrate to the very marrow, making theman’s hair bristle and his limbs quake. But it may also stealupon him almost unobserved as the gentlest of agitations, amere fleeting shadow passing across his mood. It has thereforenothing to do with intensity, and no natural fear passes overinto it merely by being intensified. I may be beyond all mea-sure afraid and terrified without there being even a trace ofthe feeling of uncanniness in my emotion.17

Uncanniness is a quality that certainly can attach to synchronicities—even the skeptical mathematicians Persi Diaconis and Frederick Mostellerrefer to “that spooky feeling” that coincidences can evoke.18 This uncan-niness may be less or more intense, but its mere presence in any degree isenough to establish the awefulness of the synchronistic experience.

By a similar line of reasoning, synchronicities can also be seen tohave the quality of overpoweringness. The feeling of this “starts from aconsciousness of the absolute superiority or supremacy of a power otherthan myself.”19 It is not just a question of being overpowered by some-thing greater than but commensurable with oneself, as one could be per-haps by another person or by the authority of an institution or even by anatural force such as a hurricane. What is important again is the qualityof what is conveying the feeling of overpoweringness. This must be some-thing “other than myself,” having in relation to me not just relative but“absolute superiority or supremacy.” Its nature must be such that I can-not conceivably challenge it. Another person, an institution, even a forceof nature such as a hurricane I can potentially resist and pit my ownpower against. But I cannot challenge or resist the genuinely numinous. Ihave not, and cannot have, any control over it. One is reminded here ofWilliam James’s identification of one of the essential features of mysticalexperiences as being that they are experiences that typically the mysticssuffer, rather than something they do or control.20 There is a similar sit-uation with synchronicities. These happenings are notoriously unpre-dictable. They can happen at any time to any person, and they caninvolve any content of consciousness and the world. One is helpless to


control them, and in this sense they have over one “absolute superiorityor supremacy.”

Third, there is the quality of urgency, that is, “the sense of a powerthat knows not stint nor stay, which is urgent, active, compelling, andalive.”21 This can also be evident in synchronicities, especially in the waysuch experiences often irresistably excite and stimulate one—urging onesometimes into even quite specific activities and trains of thought, or at leastinto a general state of inquiry as to the possible meaning of one’s experience.

So much for the daunting aspect of the mysterium. There remains,finally, the more attractive aspect of its also being fascinans, that is,“something that allures with potent charm, . . . something that en-trances.”22 The interest and attention that synchronicities can arouse isalone witness enough to the fact that they can share this charm andpower of entrancing. Indeed, this quality of fascination, along with thatof urgency, is precisely what often draws experiencers of synchronicityinto attempting a more fully articulated exploration of the phenome-non.23 Thus, all the component elements of numinosity—otherness, awe-fulness, overpoweringness, urgency, and, finally, fascination—can befound to be present, admittedly often in subtle forms, within synchronis-tic experiences.

It was appropriate to consider numinosity as the first spiritual con-cept to which to relate synchronicity since, the numinous being essentiallynonrational, it is the aspect of an experience likely to impact on one mostimmediately. Furthermore, as I have just indicated, it is often precisely thenuminous charge of an experience—in particular its elements of urgencyand fascination—that stimulates one to subsequent rational analysis ofthat experience and its possible significance.24 It should not be thought,however, that the numinous is nonrational only in the sense of being pre-rational and a stimulant to reasoning. It is also, as it were, “postrational”or “transrational” in the sense that it refers to an aspect of experiencethat cannot be exhausted by any amount of rational analysis and that remains vivid and intact even after all such analysis.

MIRACULOUSNESS

The critical moment in the breakup of the friendship of Friedrich Nietz-sche and Richard Wagner was, according to Nietzsche’s version ofevents, when the two men sent each other copies of their latest works:Wagner sending a score of his opera Parsifal and Nietzsche sending a copy of his book Human, All Too Human. Each work was deeply anti-thetical to the spirit of the other artist. Nietzsche, no great friend of the-ological concepts, nonetheless marvels at how the two works, each


destined to alienate its recipient, must have crossed in the post through,as he puts it, “a miracle of meaningful chance.”25 Though Nietzsche’schoice of expression here was undoubtedly influenced by his predilectionfor hyperbole, the incident does nevertheless serve to illustrate how syn-chronicities can strike a person—even the most unlikely of persons—asimpossible happenings and therefore as being akin to the miraculous.

Miracles are commonly understood as violations of natural law.They are thus conspicuous expressions of spirit’s ability to transgress theusual limitations of psyche and matter. The spontaneous transformationof water into wine, for example, is something that, according to the lawsof nature, should not happen. The notion of violating natural law can berefined by pointing out that it refers to the laws of nature only as we cur-rently know them. In the future, our understanding of nature may allowfor events that are currently inexplicable and apparently miraculous. Or,under a slightly different understanding of what is implied by “nature,”we may hold that apparently miraculous events are in fact natural,whether we ever understand their mechanism, simply because they occur.Miracles, then, let us say cautiously, are usually taken to be violations ofnatural law as this is currently understood by us.

In his essay “The Miraculous” (1965), R. F. Holland gives whathe considers to be two necessary conditions for an event being ac-counted a miracle in the sense of being a violation of natural law.These conditions are that the event must be (1) empirically certain and(2) conceptually impossible:

If it were less than conceptually impossible it would reducemerely to a very unusual occurrence such as could be treated(because of the empirical certainty) in the manner of a decisiveexperiment and result in the modification of the prevailingconception of natural law; while if it were less than empiri-cally certain nothing more would be called for in regard to itthan a suspension of judgement.26

Certain difficulties with these conditions have been pointed out byColin Brown, in particular the fact that the conditions seem to be “dis-qualifying from consideration all alleged miracles in the more remotepast” (specifically the miracles of Christ), since the testimony for theseremote events can never result in empirical certainty.27 However, at dif-ferent periods and among different communities the criteria needing tobe met for an event to be considered definitely to have happened (that is,empirically certain) will by no means always have been as rigorous asthey are in the present scientific climate. To many people throughout


past centuries and still to certain people today, historical testimony, especially if reinforced by claims to grace and revelation, may well besufficient to create a sense of certainty that something actually hap-pened. As for the notion of conceptual impossibility, this could be rela-tivized in much the same way as I have attempted to relativize Jung’sconception of acausality. With these qualifications in mind, Holland’stwo conditions do indeed seem to have articulated the underlying rea-soning in the ascription of the term “miracle”; and certainly they couldbe valuably applied to the assessment of more recent events for whichthe status of miracle is claimed.

Interestingly, however, Holland does not restrict the category of themiraculous to what he calls the “violation concept.”28 In addition to this heintroduces what he calls “the contingency concept of the miraculous.”29

He sees no reason why certain types of coincidence should not also be ac-counted miracles.30 He gives the example of a child standing on a railwaytrack along which a train is approaching; the train stops just before reach-ing the child. The reason for its stopping had nothing to do with the childbeing on the track; it so happened that, for reasons that had their own per-fectly intelligible causal history, the driver fainted and released pressure onthe automatic control lever. The child’s mother, who witnessed the incidentfrom a position of helplessness, accounted the saving of her child a miracle.Yet, no natural law was violated either in the child being on the track or inthe train stopping when it did: both events can readily be accounted for interms of natural causes.

Holland’s example appears to be hypothetical. An actual incidentthat illustrates his argument is the following. The fifteen members of thechoir of a church in Beatrice, Nebraska, used to gather in the churchbuilding for practice on certain evenings at 7:20 P.M. On the evening ofMarch 1, 1950, all fifteen members were late:

The minister and his wife and daughter had one reason (hiswife delayed to iron the daughter’s dress); one girl waited tofinish her geometry problem; one couldn’t start her car; twolingered to hear the end of an especially exciting radio pro-gram; one mother and daughter were late because the motherhad to call the daughter twice to wake her from a nap; and soon. The reasons seemed rather ordinary. But there were tenseparate and quite unconnected reasons for the lateness of thefifteen persons.

It was rather fortunate that none of the fifteen arrived ontime at 7:20 P.M., for at 7:25 P.M. the church building was destroyed in an explosion [when the boiler blew up].31


What makes a coincidence a miracle, according to Holland, is prin-cipally that it evokes the same kind of religious response as would a mir-acle of the violation kind:

[W]hatever happens by God’s grace or by a miracle is some-thing for which God is thanked or thankable, somethingwhich has been or could have been prayed for, somethingwhich can be regarded with awe and be taken as a sign ormade the subject of a vow.32

In the case of the choir practice incident we are in fact told that “themembers of the choir . . . wondered if their delay was ‘an act of God.’”33

Holland maintains, therefore, that

to establish the contingency concept of the miraculous as a pos-sible concept it seems to me enough to point out (1) that . . .there are genuine contingencies in the world, and (2) that certainof these contingencies can be, and are in fact, regarded reli-giously in the manner I have indicated.34

It is even possible that people reluctant to accept the existence ofmiracles involving violations of natural law may nonetheless be able to ac-cept the existence of miracles that fit the contingency concept—and be justas powerfully affected by them. Consider, for example, the following syn-chronistic experience reported by Guy Lyon Playfair. In 1981 he wasdoing research for an American television company into the events thattook place at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, where three children claimed tohave seen visions of the Virgin Mary. Huge crowds used to go to the spotand on one occasion, in the sight of as many as one hundred thousandpeople, the sun apparently burst through the clouds, went round in zigzagcircles, bathed the landscape in all the colors of the rainbow, and finallyfell to earth. Playfair, who was himself skeptical of such tales, had beenexamining the relevant Portuguese papers on microfilm at the British Li-brary’s Colindale branch, and then went down to the cafeteria where he“thought about what a Jesuit scientist named Pio Sciatizzi called the mostobvious and colossal miracle in history.” Playfair’s account continues:

I stared at the clouds over Colindale. As I was below groundlevel I could see nothing else. It was a windy and overcast dayand thick layers of low-lying cumulo-nimbus swirled past. Iwatched the peaceful and relaxing display for a few minutes.

Then came the miracle.


The clouds parted, and the sun appeared briefly throughan alignment of gaps in at least three layers of cloud, its raysreflected in sudden bright spots on their edges, and the solardisc itself visible through a protective shield of mist. Thelower cloud layer was moving faster than the upper ones, andfor one or two seconds the bright spots moved from one edgeof the gap above to the other, giving a striking impression ofa zigzag motion of the sun—a feature common to many ofthe eye-witness accounts from Fatima. Seen through movingclouds, I found, it is indeed the sun and not the clouds thatcan appear to move, as it reappears after each brief occulta-tion. The whole effect was uncannily similar to what I hadonly just finished reading about; the sighting took place slapin the middle of my field of vision and the timing was exactlyright. A few minutes earlier, and my attention might havebeen on my food and drink. A minute later I would have beenon my way home.

On the one hand, this experience gave Playfair insight into how the incidentat Fatima may not have been such a “colossal miracle” after all; but on theother hand, the insight was conveyed to him in a way which, although “awholly natural phenomenon in itself,” seemed miraculous in its own right.He acknowledges that he would no doubt have interpreted his experiencedifferently had he been a believer in the events at Fatima, but adds that in either case “its effect would probably have been very similar.”35

TRANSFORMATION

A capacity to effect significant transformations in consciousness is an-other of the attributes of spirit as I characterized it in the previous chap-ter.36 Indeed, transformation of consciousness plays a particularlyimportant role within many meditative and mystical systems, both East-ern and Western, where it is understood to be a concomitant of certainlevels of spiritual insight or attainment.37 It is also clearly implied in theconcept of religious conversion, whether this occurs in an individual sud-denly or gradually.

Regarding the possible transformative effect of synchronicity inthese kinds of spiritual sense, something of this has already been seen inthe case of Jung’s patient whose fundamental orientation toward realitywas radically changed by the synchronicity involving the scarab beetle.The specific details of the transformation brought about by this or anyother synchronicity can only be seen with close reference to the actual


case histories. Nevertheless, it is also possible to point out on a more gen-eral level some of the factors that contribute to this transformative po-tential of synchronicity. Each of these factors is intrinsic to everysynchronistic experience, though they may not always all be equally ap-preciated, since some require more sophisticated interpretative abilitieson the part of the experiencer if they are to have their full impact.

The first and most basic transformative effect of synchronicities de-rives from the sheer enigma they present, the fact that they appear to re-late events together in a way that defies our normal understanding ofwhat kinds of relationships are possible. On an intellectual level, we canbe stimulated by this enigma to think outside our normal patterns andconceptual frameworks, or at the very least to think more resourcefullywithin our old patterns. On an emotional level, we have to accommodatethe disturbance to our complacency, a disturbance that could be experi-enced negatively as a crisis and threat to our psychological stability orpositively as a release of energy and an awakening to wider potentialities.Coming out of the blue, the synchronicity stimulates us suddenly into ahigher level of intellectual and emotional activity, a level that, as well asbeing more intense, is also—insofar as it jolts us beyond the limits of ourold patterns of thought and feeling—more liberated.

A second form of transformation that can be effected by syn-chronicity is personality extension through reordering of the experi-encer’s memory and interests. Of course, there are many kinds ofexperience, not just synchronicities, that can have this effect, but in thecase of synchronicities, largely because of their enigmatic nature, it can beespecially powerful. When a striking synchronicity emphasizes a particu-lar content, one becomes much more likely to pay attention to this con-tent. At the very least it becomes more prominent in one’s memory, andoften, further than this, one can be stimulated to think about and re-search into its possible deeper meaning. Sometimes this can result in a far-reaching reorientation of one’s whole personality. If, for example, onehas not been spiritually inclined but then finds synchronicities repeatedlydirecting one’s attention to this area of experience, one’s attitude towardit may be significantly transformed.

However, extension of personality through being opened up towider ranges of experience is not the final or most radical transformativeeffect intrinsic to the nature of synchronicity. More fundamentally trans-formative is the shift that implicitly takes place in synchronicities from anobserver-centered orientation to the world to a more centerless or holis-tic state. In this latter state the observer comes to be viewed as continuouswith the observed world and as equally objective to it, while, corre-spondingly, the observed world comes to be experienced with the kind ofsubjective intimacy that usually attaches only to the observer.38


In a typical synchronicity, one sees manifesting in the externalworld the parallel of some inner idea or image with which one is identi-fied. Because of the paralleling, this identification transfers somewhat tothe external expression, with the result that one comes to experience one-self as being partly externalized in the world. That which one formerlytook to be separate from oneself, objective, turns out to be the same asthat which one took to be oneself, one’s subjectivity. Thus, from a statein which one is centered inwardly in one’s psychic processes one is shiftedinto a state in which one’s sense of identity extends beyond the psycheinto the physical world. In this way one’s identity is decentered—the ob-server becoming objectified while the observed is rendered subjective. Theresultant holistic state of perception, however briefly it lasts, marks a pro-found transformation that can have far-reaching implications.

Of course, this transformative effect is not necessarily experienced explicitly in all synchronicities, and even when it is explicitly experiencedit may be so in various degrees. The main factor determining the extent to which it is experienced is how integral to one’s sense of identity is theimage, idea, or interest that forms the psychic component of the syn-chronicity. The more integral it is, the more fully one is likely to feel one’sidentity center shifted when the synchronicity occurs. Thus, the transfor-mative effect is likely to be experienced less radically when the synchronic-ity involves a psychic content that is not particularly important to one thanwhen the psychic content consists of one’s current most dominant interest.

UNITY

A further concept implicit in the notion of spirit is unity. I noted in theprevious chapter how from the perspective of spirit the division that isusually experienced in consciousness between observer and observed canbe perceived to break down and be replaced momentarily by a more uni-tive form of consciousness. There is plenty of testimony to support thepossibility of unitive states of consciousness. The possiblity is enshrinedin the tat tvam asi (“thou art that”) of Advaita (“nondual”) Vedanta. Ex-pressed in one way or another observer–observed unity is also a themethat arises in the writings of a number of Christian mystics. Meister Eck-hart, for example, could write that in certain mystical states “the knowerand the known are one.”39 Within the twentieth century the idea receivedemphatic expression in, for instance, the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti,who would frequently remind those listening to his talks: “You are theworld and the world is you.”40 “[W]e know at present,” he remarked onone occasion, “there are the thinker and the thought, the observer andthe observed, the experiencer and the experienced; there are two differentstates. Our effort is to bridge the two.”41 Nor are experiences of the unity


of observer and observed exclusive to those specially involved with mys-tical and spiritual teachings. They can also happen spontaneously to ordinary people in the course of their everyday life. Such a class of people is represented by the initial 3,000 respondents to a questionnaire by theReligious Experience Research Unit in Oxford (now the Alister HardyResearch Centre), of whom 171 reported having experiences that involved a “feeling of unity with surroundings and/or with others.”42

With regard to synchronicities, we shall see that these are able to fa-cilitate the realization of unity on several levels: within oneself, betweenoneself and the world, and as an intrinsic feature of reality generally. Thekey to each level of realization is the simple fact that the componentevents of a synchronicity share the same content.

On the most basic level, the sharing of content can link together—andso unite—diverse contexts and areas of experience that, in the absence of the synchronistically shared content, would probably remain separate. Fromthe perspective of Jungian psychology, this uniting could help further theprocesses of integration and individuation. Integration is the process of rec-onciling apparently disparate and conflicting elements within the psycheand the external world. Thus, one may need to reconcile one’s conscious egowith suppressed or neglected aspects of one’s psyche (what Jung terms the“shadow”), or with collective psychic contents that have never before beenconscious, or with some aspect of society, or with culture, or with nature, oreven in some sense with the cosmos as a whole.43 All of this is the work ofintegration on different levels. Clearly, any kind of experience such as a syn-chronicity that establishes a strong relationship between one’s consciousnessand one of these other levels could potentially have an integrative effect.More specifically, the unification effected as integration is a function of theprocess of individuation as understood in Jungian psychology.

Besides being unitary in the sense of joining different informationalcontexts and of furthering the processes of integration and individuation,synchronicities can also effect, or point toward, a more fundamentalunion between qualitatively different areas of reality—most notably be-tween the psychic and the physical and, often bound up with this, be-tween the observer and the observed. The dynamics of this have alreadybeen explained in the preceding section while discussing the transforma-tive effects of being shifted by synchronicity into a more holistic state ofperception. We saw that, experientially, this can result in a sense of one’ssubjectivity being united with the objective outer world. In effect, this canbe an experience of the apparent unity of psyche and matter. That is, interms of the synchronistic content, there seems to be no difference be-tween one’s psyche (in the form of the inner state) and the external phys-ical world (in the form of an actual outer event); through sharing thesame content they in a sense momentarily cease to be differentiated.


In addition to being experienced directly, unity may also be ratio-nally inferred from synchronicities. The rational inference might follow onthe immediate experience as a means of accounting for it. Alternatively,the inference could be made without necessarily having actually been con-scious of experiencing unity through a synchronicity. Again, having oncemade the inference and thus having come to appreciate the unitive impli-cations of synchronicity, one could then, when one next has a synchronic-ity, actually experience it as unitive. Whatever the relationship betweenexperience and inference, both kinds of realization are possible.

The inference is quite straightforward and takes the following form.One has observed the same content manifesting in two or more indepen-dent contexts that are not only independent but involve different fields ofreality—one manifestation usually being psychic and the other physical. Apossible way of accounting for this is to accept that the content that ap-pears to be one and the same in both contexts is indeed one and the same.In the synchronicity we are seeing two different facets of one thing. It ap-pears in two contexts because it is being viewed at a level of reality inwhich differentiation prevails, the level of ego-consciousness in Jung’s ter-minology. However, at a deeper level of reality, the unconscious in Jung’smodel, such differentiation does not exist. At this deeper level psychic andphysical qualities are fused in a unitary psychophysical continuum. A con-tent might exist at this level as a kind of archetypal form capable, when itcrosses the threshold into the world of ego-consciousness, of being dif-fracted into a number of diverse spatiotemporal contexts and into theseemingly so different fields of psyche and matter. These differentiated as-pects are what we observe in a synchronicity, but they retain enoughclues—in the form of their uncanny paralleling of one another—to enableus to discern that originally they were united. Thus, we can infer the con-tent’s essential unity and along with it the fundamental unity of the fieldsof reality—most usually, psyche and matter—in which it has manifested.

The essence of the above line of reasoning was followed by Jung.Referring to the parapsychological work carried out by J. B. Rhine andhis co-workers, Jung stated that

we now know that a factor exists which mediates between theapparent incommensurability of body and psyche, giving mattera kind of “psychic” faculty and the psyche a kind of “material-ity,” by means of which the one can work on the other.44

From this he argued that “all reality would be grounded on an as yet un-known substrate possessing material and at the same time psychic qual-ities.”45 This unknown substrate Jung referred to as the “psychoidunconscious,” and for the unitary worldview that it entails he adopted


the medieval alchemical term “unus mundus” (one world). Referring morespecifically to synchronicity, he considered that this principle “suggeststhat there is an interconnection or unity of causally unrelated events, andthus postulates a unitary aspect of being.”46

Marie-Louise von Franz, one of Jung’s principal collaborators, putsthe point even more forthrightly:

[S]ynchronicity requires two essentially heterogeneous worldsystems, whose sporadic interlocking causes certain aspects ofwholeness to manifest themselves. . . . The coincidence of thetwo realms in synchronistic phenomena is our only empiricalindication of unified existence to date.47

The remark that synchronistic phenomena provide our “only empir-ical indication of unified existence” requires some qualification. We havealready seen that mystical experiences, whether cultivated or spontaneous,constitute another form of such “empirical indication.” Even if von Franzexcludes such experiences because, though empirical in the the sense ofbeing experiential, they are not empirical in the sense of being susceptibleto external observation, nonetheless there still exists another category ofphenomena that do, in the more scientific sense of the the word, empiri-cally indicate a unitary stratum to reality. In fact, this is a category ofevents of which von Franz is herself evidently very much aware, namely,those enigmatic quantum physical phenomena wherein matter displays anumber of curiously “psyche-like” qualities: nonlocality, discontinuity, in-determinacy, and the fact of being affected by observation. WolfgangPauli, on the basis of his profound involvement in the development ofquantum mechanics, remarked that

modern science may have brought us closer to a more satisfyingconception of this relationship [of mind and body], by settingup, within the field of physics, the concept of complementarity.It would be most satisfactory of all if physis and psyche couldbe seen as complementary aspects of the same reality.48

Niels Bohr, who first formulated the principle of complementarity as a res-olution of the paradoxes of quantum physics, also considered that “mate-rialism and spiritualism [that is, the physical and the psychic], which areonly defined by concepts taken from each other, are two aspects of thesame thing.”49 And more recently, David Bohm’s Implicate Order the-ory—that has its roots in an attempt to reconcile the seemingly incompat-ible implications of relativity theory and quantum theory—offers a model


of reality in which “the mental and the material are two sides of one over-all process that are (like form and content) separated only in thought andnot in actuality. Rather, there is one energy that is the basis of all real-ity.”50 Not only synchronistic phenomena and mystical experiences, there-fore, but “the latest conclusions of science”—to quote Jung again—“arecoming nearer and nearer to a unitary idea of being.”51

However, among the phenomena that indicate a unitary level of re-ality, synchronistic experiences occupy a special place. Mystical experi-ences of union are almost exclusively subjective in the sense that whensomeone is having such an experience nothing happens in or to the outerworld that would be noticed by an independent observer (apart, perhaps,from electroencephalograph and similar readings and certain behavioraltraits of the experiencer). Conversely, in the case of quantum physics, thephenomena are almost exclusively objective in the sense that, while theymay exhibit “psyche-like” behavioral properties, no one actually experi-ences the inner psychic workings of the anomalously behaving particles inthe way, for example, that we all experience the activity of our own psy-ches. In contrast to both of these, what is interesting about synchronisticexperiences is that they are equally both subjective and objective. Theinner psychic aspect of a synchronicity, unlike that supposed to attach toquantum events, most definitely is experienced directly; and the outerphysical aspect of a synchronicity, unlike that said to pertain to mysticalexperiences of unity, most definitely is susceptible to being registered byindependent observers. Thus, if von Franz is not quite accurate in assert-ing that synchronistic phenomena are our “only empirical indication ofunified existence to date,”52 she may be right to draw attention to themas being our best such indication.

TRANSCENDENCE AND IMMANENCE

Two further concepts that can be explicated from the characterization ofspirit offered in the previous chapter are transcendence and immanence.Transcendence is implied in the very fact that spirit can be differentiatedfrom the psychic and physical at all; it cannot be reduced to but “risesabove” or “transcends” them. According to the Macmillan Dictionary ofReligion, for example, transcendence means “going beyond or surpass-ing.” Although it is “most commonly used of the way God is believed toexist beyond and independent of the world,” it is also the case that “inother contexts transcendence is understood as the surpassing of ordinaryexperience from within the world.”53

Such a concept can readily be applied to synchronicity. When ArthurKoestler published a selection of “Anecdotal Cases” of synchronicity,


many of which had been sent to him in response to newspaper appeals, hearranged them in a number of loose classificatory categories.54 The firstfour of these—“The Library Angel,” “Deus Ex Machina,” “Poltergeists,”and “The Practical Joker”—while perhaps not intended as serious scien-tific categories, nonetheless testify to a very common response to syn-chronicities, namely, seeing them as the expressions of some agencyoutside of our normal psychic and physical spheres of experience. The co-incidences have been brought about by (in Koestler’s cases) an angel, agod (deus), a spirit (Geist), or an archetypal figure (the practical joker ortrickster). More explicitly, Stephen Jenkins, whose synchronicity involvingthe four horses was used as an illustration in the previous chapter, re-sponds to some of his observations of synchronistic phenomena by asking:“Is some intelligence (or more than one) manipulating things—in thewidest sense—in order to influence us for some mysterious purpose?”55

It appears, therefore, that one can be led to make an inference fromthe occurrence of synchronicity to the existence of a transcendent intelli-gence. However, it can also happen that belief in a transcendent intelli-gence already exists and, rather than being inferred from synchronicity, isinvoked as an already intellectually satisfying principle capable of ade-quately explaining synchronistic occurrences. Thus, for example, St.Thomas Aquinas, in a discussion of providence, says the following:

When a master sends two servants to the same place, theirmeeting may seem to them a chance encounter. So a happen-ing may seem haphazard or casual with respect to lowercauses when it appears unintentional, but there is nothing for-tuitous about such events with respect to a higher cause.56

If by “lower causes” we understand all normally recognized ways of psy-chophysical interaction and by “higher cause” we understand some tran-scendent ordering intelligence, then Aquinas is giving precisely the kind ofexplanation of synchronicity we have just indicated.

Whether one starts, as Jenkins appears to do, from the experienceof synchronicity and from that infers the existence of the transcendent,or, like Aquinas, reasons back from an acceptance of the transcendent toan understanding of synchronicity, in both cases the same implicit rea-soning is present: that if there are two or more psychophysical events thatare manifestly connected through their meaning yet not by any normalcausal means, this can be accounted for by assuming the events to havebeen coordinated from a level transcendent to the field of normal psy-chophysical causality.57


The specific nature of the inferred transcendent reality can be re-ferred to in a wide range of ways reflecting different outlooks and beliefs.One might conceive of it as a single Divinity, whether a personal Being oran impersonal Absolute. It could be an abstract principle of order andmeaning such as Tao. Again, one might think of it as a spiritual dimensioninhabited by a plurality of higher beings: gods, demons, angels, ancestors,and so on; or as an extension of inner reality whose expressions originatefrom a higher self or from a constellation of archetypal factors. The factthat we can conceive of such a wide range of possible forms the transcen-dent might take undoubtedly reflects diverse features of our psychologicalmakeup. Just as our psychology shows tendencies sometimes toward per-sonality and sometimes toward impersonality, sometimes toward unifica-tion and at other times toward pluralization, so our conceptions of thetranscendent unknown reflect this. Of course, it could also be the case thatreality at a transcendent level is paradoxically both personal and imper-sonal, both unitary and plural, and that we conceive it as such not becausewe are projecting our own psychology onto reality but because our psy-chology accurately reflects reality, as microcosm to macrocosm.

Theologically, it is often considered important to balance the con-cept of transcendence with that of immanence, understood as “God’s in-dwelling and omnipresence in the world”58—a quality indicated in mycharacterization as spirit’s interpenetration or interfusing of the psy-chophysical. Indeed, problems are thought to arise if either of these con-cepts receives undue prominence:

If transcendence is emphasized at the expense of immanence,God [or however spiritual reality is conceived] is in dangerof becoming so distant from his creation that he ceases to beof any relevance to humankind. Similarly, if immanence istoo heavily emphasized, there is a danger of degeneratinginto pantheism.59

Synchronistic experiences can as readily be related to immanence asto transcendence. Although the anomalous paralleling involved in syn-chronicities can suggest the operation of some transcendent factor, it is al-ways the case that the anomalous event itself takes place within thepsychophysical domain of ordinary experience. It cannot be simply reducedto the psychic and physical, and is therefore arguably spiritual, but neither,by definition, can it occur in the absence of the psychic and physical. Thus,from a spiritual perspective, one can view synchronicity as maintaining “anequilibrium between the two poles of transcendence and immanence.”60


PROVIDENCE

The understanding of spirit as something that both transcends the normalpsychophysical world and operates immanently within it helps evoke thefurther spiritual concept of providence. Succinctly, providence is “the be-lief that all things are ultimately ordered and governed by God towards apurpose.”61 In my characterization of spirit in the previous chapter, Idrew attention to the properties of spontaneity and autonomy, whichsuggests that spirit is not simply limited by the unfolding of psychic andphysical patterns of activity but can initiate something from beyond thepsychophysical. I also drew attention to the properties of intelligence andpurposiveness, which suggests that the patterns of activity that spirit ini-tiates can be ordered and meaningful. If one assumes that this orderedand meaningful patterning of the psychophysical by spirit operates on asignificant enough scale, one begins to approach certain traditional un-derstandings of providence.

Synchronistic experiences, as likewise involving the properties ofspontaneity, autonomy, intelligence, and purposiveness, can easily sug-gest the operation of providence in the above sense.62 In fact, the notionof purposive ordering has already entered the picture several times in thediscussion of transcendence. Koestler’s classificatory categories of “TheLibrary Angel” and the “Deus Ex Machina,” for instance, imply the ideaof an intelligence ordering events to some benevolent purpose. Jenkins,too, was quoted as wondering whether “some intelligence (or more thanone) [might be] manipulating things . . . in order to influence us for somemysterious purpose.”63 And the passage quoted from Aquinas to illus-trate the possible relation between higher and lower causes was takenfrom a discussion specifically of the concept of providence.

One is perhaps most likely to view synchronicities as providentialwhen their consequences are conspicuously momentous. Thus, for exam-ple, Ira Progoff relates the following story about Abraham Lincoln.64 Inhis early years Lincoln had intimations that he had an important destinyto fulfill but realized that he could only do so if he developed his intellectand acquired some professional skills. Unfortunately, since he lived in afrontier environment where the necessary tools for professional studywere very difficult to find, it looked as though his aspirations would notbe fulfilled. Then one day a stranger came to Lincoln with a barrel full ofodds and ends. The stranger openly admitted that nothing in the barrelwas of any value but, being desperate for the money, he urged Lincoln tobuy it for a dollar. Out of kindness Lincoln agreed. Later, when he cameto clear out the barrel, he found among the other contents an almostcomplete edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries. As Progoff notes, “It


was the chance, or synchronistic, acquisition of these books that enabledLincoln to become a lawyer and eventually to embark on his career inpolitics.”65 The consequences of this fortunate coincidence were signifi-cant not just for Abraham Lincoln but for the history of a whole people.

However, even when the consequences of a synchronicity are not asmomentous as this on the collective level, they may still be felt to be so ona more personal level—if, for example, the synchronicity directly helps anindividual to find his or her vocation or partner or place to live.66 Even ifit is only a question of the synchronicity seeming to further some short-term and relatively unimportant interest—turning up a needed object orpiece of information, for instance67—the experiencer may nonetheless beled by this to infer that a similar kind of benevolent ordering could alsobe operating more widely and in more important matters. Indeed, onecould make this kind of inference even if one’s own latest synchronisticexperiences were not conspicuously beneficial at all. If synchronicity canreasonably be regarded as the operation of a transcendent intelligence,sometimes producing obviously beneficial effects, it is reasonable to sup-pose that such a transcendent intelligence could be operating beneficiallyquite generally, even if the benefit is not always readily discernible by usor conforming to our expectations as to what constitutes benefit.

REVELATION

The same combination of attributes—spontaneity and autonomy alongwith intelligence and purposiveness—are involved in the spiritual conceptof revelation. This term is generally used to refer to “disclosures offeredby God or from the divine as distinguished from those attained by humanprocesses of observation, experiment and reason.”68 However, I wouldprefer to articulate it as “communications to human consciousness froma level transcendent to our normal psychic and physical functioning.” Ishould also make clear that I am concerned primarily with personal rev-elations rather than with the kind of collective revelations represented,for instance, by the scriptures of many of the major world religions.69

To appreciate how synchronicity might be related to revelation weneed to introduce a further distinction regarding the sources from whichthe meaning of synchronicities can be derived. This is the distinction be-tween the meaning that can derive from the essential form of synchronic-ities and that which can derive from their specific content. The essentialform of a synchronicity is those features that define a happening as a syn-chronicity: namely, that there should be at least two events that parallelone another acausally, notably, and meaningfully. Clearly, since all syn-chronicities, in order to qualify as such, must possess the same essential


form, any kinds of meaning derivable from this essential form will applyto every synchronicity.70 The content of a synchronicity, by contrast, con-sists of the specific point or points of paralleling between the coincidingevents and so varies from one synchronicity to another. The meaning de-rivable from such content will therefore also vary from one synchronic-ity to another.

The relationship of synchronicity to each of the spiritual concepts Ihave considered so far, and, hence, the case for synchronicity being ac-counted spiritually meaningful, primarily depends for its appreciation onessential form. For example, it was the intrinsic anomalousness of the no-table acausal paralleling in synchronicity that justified relating syn-chronicity to the concepts of miraculousness and (at a general level)transformation. It was also this that provided the grounds for the infer-ence by which synchronicity was related to the concepts of a transcendentor unitary aspect of reality. The connection of synchronicity with thesespiritual concepts could therefore be made on the basis of any syn-chronicity, since they all necessarily involve this essential form.

However, in the case of the concepts of transformation (at a morespecific level), of providence to a certain extent, and of revelation veryclearly, much often depends on the content of the synchronicity as well ason its essential form. The appreciation of a transformative effect, an actof providence, or a revealed communication depends on what the specificeffect, act, or communication is, and this is something that, while it mayhave its generalized aspect, usually differs significantly from case to case.

The contents that emerge through synchronicity are, or can readilybe resolved into, images or ideas. In our attempt to discern the possiblemeaning in synchronicities we need to make it one of our strategies to ex-amine the specific meaning of each such content. Doing this, the firstthing we notice is that, if indeed the contents do have some specific mean-ing, that meaning is rarely explicit. To get some hold on this meaningoften requires a detailed analysis and amplification of both the contentand its contexts, and above all an appreciation of the fact that the imagesand ideas involved are generally symbolic in character.

The sense in which I understand the term “symbol” follows Jung,for whom symbolic expression is “the best possible formulation of a rel-atively unknown thing.”71 A symbol is thus to be distinguished from “aconventional sign” that consists of “associations that are more com-pletely and better known elsewhere” and from allegory that involves “anintentional paraphrase or transmogrification of a known thing.”72 Elab-orating on his own understanding, which may be influenced by Jung, theJesuit theologian Avery Dulles describes a symbol as “a sign pregnantwith a plenitude of meaning which is evoked rather than explicitly


stated.”73 Any attempt to achieve a “propositional explication” of a sym-bol, he argues, “to the extent that it achieves literalness, leaves out thingstacitly perceived through the symbol; it is incomplete, and by fragment-ing the density of the symbol, blunts its power.”74

Dulles highlights four further properties of symbols as I too wish tounderstand them. These are, first of all, participation :

[S]ymbolism gives not speculative but participatory knowl-edge—knowledge, that is to say, of a self-involving type. Asymbol is never a sheer object. It speaks to us only insofar asit lures us to situate ourselves mentally within the universe ofmeaning and value which it opens up to us.75

Second, we have transformation: “Symbol, insofar as it involves theknower as a person, has a transforming effect.”76 The third property isthe effect on commitments and behavior: “symbolism has a powerful in-fluence on commitments and behaviour. . . . It stirs the imagination, re-leases hidden energies in the soul, gives strength and stability to thepersonality, and arouses the will to consistent and committed action.”77

The fourth property is an ability to generate new awareness: “symbol in-troduces us into realms of awareness not normally accessible to discursivethought. . . . By putting us in touch with deeper aspects of reality sym-bolism can generate an indefinite series of particular insights.”78

Dulles draws attention to these four properties in the course of anattempt to show “the parallelism between the properties of symboliccommunication and of revelation,79 and his discussion of revelation pro-vides a useful framework for the more detailed exploration of the possi-ble relationships between this concept and synchronicity.

Dulles identifies five principal ways in which the concept of revelationhas been understood. He evaluates each of these “models of revelation,”pointing out their respective strengths and weaknesses.80 Then he introducesthe concept of “symbolic mediation,”81 suggesting that revelation is essen-tially a form of “symbolic disclosure” and that a symbolic approach to rev-elation “can incorporate what is valid in the five models and at the sametime correct what is misleading in them.”82 This emphasis on symbolism fa-cilitates the connection of revelation to synchronicity, which, as I under-stand it, is also through its content a form of “symbolic disclosure.”

Dulles calls his first model the “doctrinal” or “propositional”model. In this, “revelation is understood on the analogy of authoritativeteaching. God is seen as an infallible teacher who communicates knowl-edge by speech and writing.”83 The adherents of this model generallyclaim that the statements in their accepted text of revelation are to be


taken as literal expressions of the truth about whatever they describe(hence, the model is called “propositional”). Dulles argues that this modelcan be made more acceptable and cogent by considering that the “speechand writing” through which the “teaching” is revealed should (at least ina large number of cases) be viewed symbolically rather than literally.84

The parallel between this and synchronicity should be clear fromwhat has already been said. In certain cases, the synchronistic content ei-ther itself consists of speech and writing or is easily resolvable into these.The resulting statements can then be considered a form of “teaching”: informing, directing, exhorting, and so on.

Dulles’s second model is the “historical.” In this

revelation is depicted as a series of historical events which havegiven the community of faith its corporate identity. God is rep-resented as the transcendent agent who brings about the revela-tory events and by means of them makes signs to his people.85

Again Dulles uses the concept of symbolic mediation to increase the plau-sibility of this model of revelation, showing how certain revelatory events,without denying their historical factualness, only take on their full mean-ing when viewed symbolically. For example, many of the events in the lifeof Christ can be more richly understood when viewed symbolically—asbuilt “on certain cosmic archetypes”86—but this is by no means incom-patible with the possibility that those events really occurred.

Relating this to the present subject, it seems possible that certainsynchronicities could be viewed as historical sign-events. A synchronicityis an event, it occurs at a specific moment in time, and it can be seen as asign. The material that has come to my attention does not seem likely togive any “community of faith its corporate identity”—it seems too am-biguous and multifaceted for that, as well as too free in drawing on anyand every religious and cultural tradition for its content. However, if oneallows for this eclecticism, the synchronistic event can certainly be viewedas a sign for some party, even if this party comprises only the one personwho experiences the synchronicity. A series of such synchronistic eventsmight then make up a form of “revelation history,” again even if only fortheir individual experiencer.87

The third of Dulles’s models is what he calls the “experiential”model, in which “revelation is interpreted on the basis of an immediate in-terior experience. God is viewed as the divine visitor, the guest of the soul.He communicates by his presence.”88 The principal improvement made tothis model by the concept of symbolic mediation is that it removes theproblem of conceiving how an experience of God could be totally “imme-diate.” As Dulles remarks, “Even the highest mystical experience, which


dispenses with normal mediations through concepts and images, still restsupon inner effects of grace that in some way mediate the encounter it-self.”89 Further, “[T]he symbol itself, in its full dimensions, includes theexperience of grace.”90

The parallels between synchronicity and this experiential model ofrevelation do not depend so much on an appreciation of the nature ofsynchronistic content. Revelation conceived as God visiting the soul andcommunicating by his presence is more akin to the experience of numi-nosity that we considered earlier. The qualities implicit in the experienceof numinosity—otherness, awefulness, overpoweringness, urgency, andfascination—are, like the experience of grace, subtle inner effects medi-ating the encounter with the divine. In a sense, synchronicity itself couldbe considered a symbol that includes these qualities.

The fourth of the models in Dulles’s survey is the “dialectical”: “Inthe dialectical model revelation occurs through a powerful, transformingword, such as the proclamation of the Cross and Resurrection.”91 Rep-resentatives of this way of viewing revelation (Dulles specifically men-tions Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann)

denied that God’s presence and activity could ever be discov-ered within the realms of historical fact, doctrinal statement,or religious experience. And yet they were convinced, in faith,that God was present and active in human history, language,and experience. To express the paradoxical reality of God’spresence and absence they had recourse to a succession of af-firmations and denials, statements and counterstatements,which seemed to them to respect the mystery of God.92

Dialectical theologians themselves have been wary of attempts to viewthe divine “word” as in any sense symbolic, fearing that it might therebycome to be considered just one symbol among many and so lose its spe-cial status as originating from the divinely transcendent rather than fromhuman consciousness. But as Dulles points out, it would still be possibleto consider that “of all symbols it [the word] is the most spiritual and themost akin to the divine.”93 There are strong similarities between the na-ture of symbols and the kind of dialectic involved in the above conceptionof revelation:

[S]ymbol, as we have noted, is capable of transcending differ-ences which, to discursive reason, appear insurmountable.The symbolic approach, like the dialectical, is at home withinscrutable mystery. It refuses to reduce meaning and intelligi-bility to the narrow confines of conceptual logic.94


Relating this to synchronicity, it is necessary again to emphasizethat I do not consider such synchronistic experiences as have come to myattention to give, in their totality, direct support to any specific tradi-tional revelation, hence, not to such a “word” as “the proclamation ofthe Cross and Resurrection.” However, abstracting the concept of “di-alectical revelation” from its specifically Christian context, there areagain striking similarities between this conception and the nature of syn-chronicity. As we have seen particularly in relation to the concepts ofmiraculousness and transformation, synchronicity is also intrinsicallyparadoxical in nature. If the dialectical theologians are indeed identifyingsomething important about revelation—its fundamentally paradoxicalnature—then synchronicity, as itself a profoundly paradoxical form ofapparent communication, may not be unrelated to this.

Dulles’s fifth and final model of revelation is what he calls the“awareness model.” In this, “revelation takes the form of a breakthroughin the advance of human consciousness. God reveals by luring the imagi-nation to construe the world in a new way.”95 This model is highly com-patible with the concept of symbolic mediation. As Dulles points out,“Partisans of the ‘consciousness’ model commonly regard symbolic com-munication in one form or another (image, metaphor, parable, story, andthe like) as the prime bearer of revelation.”96

Again, synchronicity can be related to this model of revelation boththrough its essential form and through its content. A synchronistic content,being symbolic, can clearly qualify as a potential “bearer of revelation”along the lines of the last quoted statement. As for the essential form ofsynchronicity, we have already seen that this can have a profound trans-formative effect on consciousness—such transformation being, in effect,the emergence of a new awareness.

Synchronicity, then, can be related to a basic conception of revela-tion primarily because synchronistic content can be seen as a form ofhigher-level communication to human consciousness.97 In addition tothis, there are several further ways in which it can be related to some ofthe more sophisticated conceptions of revelation. Of particular signifi-cance is that the content of synchronicities can be viewed symbolically,while the concept of revelation is also enriched by being so viewed.


CHAPTER 4

SYMBOL, MYTH,AND SYNCHRONICITY

THE BIRTH OF ATHENA

To give greater substance to the whole of the preceding discussion, it isnecessary now to begin a detailed examination of some synchronistic casematerial. Such material as has been described so far in this work has con-sisted mostly of the one-off experiences of a variety of separate individu-als, and indeed this is the kind of material that has usually receivedattention in published collections.1 In what follows, I shall instead con-sider an extended series of closely interrelated incidents that were almostall experienced by a single individual. This will be followed in the nextchapter by an even more extensive series of such incidents. In general, aseries of synchronicities has the advantage over a collection of one-off ex-periences of enabling patterns of meaning to emerge that are considerablymore complex and articulated—and, hence, usually also both more im-pressive in terms of their unlikeliness and more conducive to the discern-ment of possible levels of spiritual significance. In my commentary on theincidents, there will be occasion to mention each of the spiritual conceptsexamined in the previous chapter. When any specific concept is invoked,the full details of its possible relationship to synchronicity will not be re-peated but can be considered to be present implicitly and to form thebackground out of which specific implications come sharply into focus.

“THE BIRTH OF ATHENA”:A SYNCHRONISTIC NARRATIVE

The material to be considered in this chapter consists of the synchronisticexperiences of Edward Thornton, which have been recounted by him inhis autobiographical book The Diary of a Mystic (1967).2 Thornton, a

63

self-made wool merchant in Bradford, England, showed an early propen-sity toward various kinds of mystical experience, which he developedthrough a lifelong practical interest in both Eastern and Western reli-gions. Shortly after the Second World War he was introduced by the Do-minican Fr. Victor White to Jung and his associates in Zürich. ThereThornton underwent analysis and trained to become a Jungian therapisthimself, though he afterward came to feel that this was not his true voca-tion. Nonetheless, he became imbued with the Jungian way of thinkingand framework of concepts, including the synchronicity concept, and thismust have prepared him to observe and appreciate (and, let it be said, in-terpret after a particular fashion) the following series of events that occurred to him in the mid- to late 1940s.

We should note at the outset that Thornton presents his synchronic-ities within a work specifically dealing with his “mystical” experiences. Itis no surprise, therefore, that he should continually emphasize preciselythe spiritual aspect of synchronicity. He states that he is going to describehis synchronicities within the context of a consideration of how, as he putsit, “it often happens that the highly sensitive type of mind that we callmystical, causes unusual modifications in the physical organism withwhich it is linked.”3 In other words, his concern is with the psychophysi-cal implications of spiritual transformation. Primarily, this involves ap-parently psychosomatic symptoms, but significantly it appears in his casealso to involve synchronistic occurrences. The account is presented asmuch as possible in the experiencer’s own words, though with commen-tary interspersed. The individual incidents are tagged with numbers inorder to help clarify their parameters within my text and also to facilitatesubsequent reference to them.

(1) Thornton relates that the following occurred on October 20,1944:

During a period when I was particularly devoted to ourBlessed Lord . . . I saw in clear daylight [he was in his livingroom] a vision of what, to me, was the interior of a GreekTemple. . . . In front of me stood what I took to be an altarupon which was the image of a white owl.4

(2) He was, he says, “all the more moved by this scene when I beganto return to ordinary consciousness, as during meditation the previousday, I had had the vivid impression of a live owl.”5

(3) Further, “some days before that [I] had experienced a dream inwhich a flock of owls came swooping down over my head as I walkedthrough a wooded glade.”6


Thornton soon learned one of the main symbolical meanings of the owl and found that this gave profound personal significance tohis experiences:

[T]he owl was the bird sacred to Athena the Virgin-goddess andProtectress of Athens. Her supreme attribute was said to be thatof Divine Wisdom. Later, when I started to offer particular de-votion to the Blessed Virgin, I found that one of Her aspects,contained in the Lorettan Litany is Sedes Sapientiae (Seat ofWisdom); consequently I found that I had a special affinity withthe Eternal Mother in her aspect of Divine Wisdom.7

The word “consequently” in this statement is suggestive. Thornton im-plies that his inner experiences, symbolically interpreted, actually madehim aware of, “revealed” to him, his affinity with the Virgin Mary. Thisis the first indication that he is effectively viewing his experiences as aform of personal revelation, that is, as a transcendentally originatingcommunication to his conscious mind of information having personalspiritual relevance. The specific content of this revelation is that a divinebeing, the Eternal Mother, has a special interest in him, an interest that hewill later come to see as virtually providential.

(4) The above events occurred before Thornton’s meetings withJung and involvement with analytical psychology. When, a few yearslater, he started going out to Zürich, “the owl,” he says, “again began toappear in my dreams and visions.”8

(5) And:

I also found that a couple of owls had come to nest quite nearto my garden in Yorkshire, reminding me continually of theirpresence by hooting at night. Although this may seem to be aperfectly natural phenomenon, we had never before had owlsin our garden as far as anyone could remember.9

This appearance of the owls in the garden was the first physical event inthe series. As such it also marks the occurrence of the first conspicuoussynchronicity (that is, it involves a meaningful acausal paralleling of innerpsychic and outer physical events). One would like more detail thanThornton provides regarding the temporal relationship between the ap-pearance of the real owls and the further “dreams and visions” of owls,since the nightly hooting suggests itself as an obvious possible cause of atleast some of these dreams and visions. However, even if a normal causalfactor of this kind cannot be excluded from having played some part in

Symbol, Myth, and Synchronicity 65

the events, it is inadequate on its own to account for the overall patternof meaning that was soon to emerge, some of which only linked in to theowl incidents obliquely and could not be appreciated by Thornton untillater when he was in possession of knowledge concerning a certain myth.

(6) Thornton reports the following dream for March 17, 1948: “Iwas examining the back of my brother’s head. At the top of the spinalcolumn there was a wound which reminded me of a vagina.”

(7) This caused him to recall that “About a month earlier I dreamtthat my head was to be shaved after the manner of a monk in the orien-tal tradition.11

(8) Then, May 10, 1948,12 he dreamed he

was in a room where an operation was to take place, before aclass of medical students. Professor Jung was in the vicinity.Before the operation began, all stood up and sang a hymn.When we came to the end I continued with: Gloria Patri, etFilio, et Spiritui Sancto, but soon realized that this was notpart of the hymn, and felt somewhat embarassed. A surgeonstanding by me, however, smiled and assured me that I neednot worry as many make the mistake of continuing as I did. Itappeared to be the school song.13

With these dreams we have three further inner experiences. At this stagethey seemed thematically unrelated to the earlier owl incidents, thoughThornton recognized that they too required to be interpreted symboli-cally. He suggests:

The dream where the stress is laid on the vagina-like woundcontains the first intimation of symbolic copulation and aconsequent birth, but in a spiritual sense, as the next head-shaving dream implies. The so-called school-hymn in the lat-ter has close association with a hymn to Aesculapius, the Godof Healing.14

Again, the experiences appear to be revealing (through symbolism and al-lusion to an ancient healing ritual) a specific meaning to Thornton:namely, that something may be going to happen that has to do with aspiritual rebirth effected through sickness and recovery. As yet, however,there was no indication as to what, exactly, all this might mean in rela-tion to his life. Indeed, the whole series of incidents we are considering isremarkable for the amount of relevant associative and prefigurative detail


that emerges before its full significance is brought into focus by the criti-cal events. Two more prefigurative inner experiences were the following.

(9) Thornton had an “interior vision” during meditation on June 7,1948, in which he saw “[t]he luminous form of two owls sitting upon thebranch of a tree with the full moon behind them. As I gaze upon themthey merge into one.”15

(10) Then, on September 23, 1948, he had a dream in which

I was going the round of solitary cells in a prison with mybrother, whose job it was to awaken the various inmates bychopping their foreheads with an axe. Each occupant wasfound kneeling in the classical Christian way at a prayer desk,with his head resting on a block. As we entered the last cell mybrother gave one chop at the slumberer’s forehead and imme-diately awakened him. I felt that I was the one to whom thishad happened and became fully conscious.16

(11) It was not until the following year, 1949, that Thornton felt hebegan properly to understand these dreams and other experiences. Thekey was provided when he heard Karl Kerényi lecturing in Zürich on Pal-las Athena and expounding the main myth concerning the goddess’sbirth. Kerényi (quoting the Homeric Hymn to Athena) related how

“Hephaistos . . . assisted at the birth and smote Zeus’s skullwith a double-edged axe or [a] hammer. Pallas Athene sprangforth. . . . All the [im]mortals were afraid [and astonished at]the sight of her, as she sprang out [in] front of aegis-bearingZeus, from his immortal head, brandishing her sharp javelin.Mightily quaked great Mount Olympus beneath the weight ofthe owl-eyed maiden.”17

Through this episode from myth Thornton was able to appreciate the in-terconnection of his two series of inner experiences, those concerning theowl and those concerning some kind of wound or operation to the head.Both related to the myth of Athena’s birth: the first because she is sym-bolized by the owl and the second because her birth was effected by anaxe blow to Zeus’s head. The timeliness of Thornton’s learning about thismyth can itself be considered a synchronicity.

Knowledge of the myth enabled Thornton to crystallize his own in-terpretation of the meaning of the events so far. He considered the over-all pattern to represent “the prefiguration of a dynamic experience


which is related to the feminine principle in that attribute of its validitywhich is expressed in masculine psychology, namely, the birth of DivineWisdom in man.”18 This interpretation again illustrates how Thorntonwas viewing his experiences within a spiritual framework. The actualcontent of “the feminine principle . . . expressed in masculine psychol-ogy” clearly derives from his involvement in Jungian psychology. This it-self reaches into spiritual concerns: the balancing of the feminine andmasculine components of the personality was, at certain levels of its ac-complishment, equated by Jung with mystical union, the mysterium co-niunctionis.19 Beyond this, we can again see how Thornton is implicitlypresenting his interpretation or understanding as something that theevents themselves have revealed to him. What they have revealed is thefact that some “dynamic experience” is impending—an experience thathe anticipates will be spiritually transforming inasmuch as it will resultin the emergence (within himself, the implication is) of divine wisdom.More specifically, it will be an experience or realization of the imma-nence of the divine, since, as he understands it, “Pallas Athena was a ter-restrial, not a celestial Goddess.”20

(12) The next and final episode before the full synchronistic status ofthe series of incidents began to reveal itself occurred on April 2, 1949.Thornton was visiting a local osteopath, having dislocated the little toe ofhis left foot. While the osteopath was massaging and strapping up his foot,she “quite unexpectedly” began telling Thornton some of her own experi-ences. She claimed to be “mediumistic,” “a born healer,” and she men-tioned “an experience which impressed her profoundly.” Thornton relates:

She felt a crack open suddenly at the top of her head whilelying in bed, and blood was running down from it all over herbody. Upon touching herself she discovered that there was noblood and that she was quite well, but felt that the end hadcome and that she was quite ready.

The osteopath came to believe that this experience related to her need toaccept unconditionally her vocation as a healer: “she realized,” Thorntontells us, “that a power was working through her, and that she must sub-mit to it absolutely.” She told Thornton as he was taking his leave of herthat “she had never before spoken so intimately to anyone.”21

This incident paralleled to a remarkable extent the inner experi-ences that Thornton had been having so far, as well as his interpretationof them. Just as he had been dreaming about wounds to the head andhad considered these dreams to constitute some kind of revelation con-cerning a providentially ordered spiritual transformation (the birth of


Divine Wisdom, as he articulated it), so the osteopath hallucinated hav-ing a wound on her head, took the experience as a kind of revelationconcerning her vocation, and was profoundly transformed by it. Evenmore striking, however, as we shall now see, was the prefigurative na-ture both of this encounter with the osteopath and of Thornton’s otherdreams and visions.

(13) On April 20, 1949, eighteen days after the visit to the os-teopath, Thornton “experienced a terrible spasm beginning, as it seemed,in the left foot, and working up to the heart.”22 The left side of his bodybecame paralyzed and his speech was impaired. He was taken to theDuke of York’s Hospital in Bradford where initial diagnoses suggestedthe problem lay in the upper region of the cerebral hemisphere behind theright forehead. Later he was moved to Leeds Infirmary where it was con-firmed that he had a tumor over the right hemisphere, on which it wouldbe necessary to operate.

Thus, Thornton’s dreams regarding wounds to the head and an op-eration taking place (6, 7, 8, 10) proved to be synchronistic with his ac-tual life. It is also interesting to note that the osteopath felt moved torelate her head-wound vision while massaging Thornton’s left foot (12)—the part of his body where the symptoms of his illness first manifested.

(14) Once diagnosed and admitted to the hospital, Thornton re-membered two other relevant dreams. First, on December 24, 1948, “Iwas looking in a glass and I or someone was drawing a silver wire frommy right temple.”23

(15) The second dream had never been written down but Thorntonsays he “remembered it quite vividly”: “I was looking in a glass andfound that the skin on my right temple was like parchment, as if it haddried up after a wound.”24 Thornton had his analyst Dr. C. A. Meier, oneof Jung’s associates in Zürich, informed of these dreams by telephone.Meier assured him that they gave “a perfect prognosis concerning the ill-ness and operation.”25

(16) It was not only Thornton’s series of head-wound dreams thatproved synchronistic. His dreams and visions involving owls proved to beso as well—and in a way that, at the time, impressed him even more pow-erfully. Having been moved to Leeds Infirmary, he was composing him-self for the night when

I happened to look out of the window, and to my greatamazement saw a colossal bronze owl looking down on mefrom the top of one of the spires of Leeds City Hall which wassituated directly opposite . . . the image of the owl seemed tobe just outside of my window.26


This appears to have been the most critical experience in the whole seriesand the one that moved Thornton most deeply:

I experienced a shudder, both of dread and holy awe, and thesynchronicity of the happening struck me as soon as the firstshock seemed to subside, and I realized its implication. I wasunder the special patronage of the Eternal Mother in her as-pect of Sedes Sapientiae.27

His interpretation seemed to be further confirmed for him when, “castingmy eyes further over to the right, across the tops of the buildings beyondthe City Hall, I saw the figure of Athena with helmet, shield and lance,standing out above the tops of the surrounding buildings.”28 (This statue,he later learned, stood on a public hall known as the Coliseum.)

The outstanding feature in Thornton’s descriptions of this criticalsynchronicity is the sense he conveys of its numinosity. A fairly strongemotional charge had accompanied some of his earlier inner experiences,making them especially “vivid” or giving them the quality of “visions”that he was “moved by.”29 But there was nothing to equal the “greatamazement,” the “shudder, both of dread and holy awe,” the “shock” ofthis present “breathtaking experience” that conveyed “the overwhelmingreality of the protecting grace of the Divine Mother.”30 This additionalemotiveness in Thornton’s responses undoubtedly owes something to theperilous physical condition he was in at the time. Its main cause, however,appears to be that he was encountering here not just a somewhat unusualinner experience but a radically anomalous synchronicity: quite miracu-lously the external world seemed to be participating in his inner spiritualdrama. As we have seen, Rudolf Otto, in his characterization of the fac-tors that contribute to the sense of numinosity, specifies that the “feelingof uncanniness” is of paramount importance—more so even than sheer intensity, which may or may not accompany the uncanniness.31

Once more Thornton considered his experience to be revealing tohim the same basic message—that he was “under the special patronage ofthe Eternal Mother in her aspect of Sedes Sapientiae.” However, whereasbefore he spoke of having a “special affinity”32 with her, now he speaksof “special patronage” and, a little further on, of “special protection”33

and “the protecting grace.34 Within his more perilous situation, andunder the influence of his extraordinary synchronistic experiences, heseems to have felt that Providence was operating for him more directlyand intimately. Thus, for example, the presence of the bronze owl and thestatue of Athena caused him to find “great significance in the fact that Ihad been removed to Leeds.”35


It is probably in the light of this sense of Providence that we shouldview the next episode in Thornton’s narrative. That same night, whileunder the influence of his “breathtaking experience,” he “suddenly be-came aware that I had to prepare to die.”36 He reflected on his life andfaith and eventually reconciled himself to the fact of dying, to the pointwhere he says he “actually welcomed the experience.” However, “nosooner had I accepted the situation thus, than I knew in full clarity that Iwas not yet required to die.” As soon as he realized this, he “fell into anundisturbed sleep of peace and never had the slightest qualm or doubt asto the outcome of the operation.”37

What Thornton went through here was a particularly powerful formof symbolic death, in the course of which he felt he made a “full and perfectrenunciation” of all his worldly attachments. In other words, his attitude to-ward life was significantly transformed. Some of his realizations—for ex-ample, that he “had to prepare to die” and then that he “was not yetrequired to die”—again suggest strongly that he felt himself to be in com-munication somehow with an intelligence that was conveying to him, thatis, revealing, these imperatives and certainties. As he narrates it, the wholeexperience is given the sense of having been providentially ordered for thesake of its transformative effect.

(17) The operation was performed on May 10, 1949. In several de-tails it paralleled particularly closely Thornton’s earlier dreams. The dreamabout his head being shaved (7) was fulfilled when, as he relates, “at 8 A.M.a male nurse arrived and shaved off my hair.”38

(18) After the operation, when the bandage was eventually removedfrom his head, “I discovered that my skull had been cut right down themiddle, thus fulfilling in the outer world the head-chopping dream [10]which I had experienced on September 24th of the previous year.”39

(19) And third, “I was also later to establish that I had experiencedforeknowledge of the operation accompanied by the Hymn to Aescu-lapius in the early morning exactly one year before.”40 That is, the oper-ation was on May 10, 1949, while his dream of attending an operationhad taken place on the morning of May 10, 1948 (8). Moreover, just asthe operation commenced, a religious community with which Thorntonhad been associated began saying a High Mass on his behalf—thus reflecting the ritual and hymn of the dream.41

(20) One final incident closes the series. The following year, 1950,was pronounced Holy Year by the Vatican, and Thornton decided to visitRome on a pilgrimage. There, he recounts:

I was taken to see the small temple of Athena, and shown aphotograph of two figures of the Goddess. This seemed to


confirm the interior vision in which I had seen two owlswhich merged and became one [9]. It was pointed out to methat the two figures which stand side by side are identical, ex-cept for the engraved image on the front of each shield.42

Though Thornton is not explicit about it, this motif of two becoming one,especially as it occurs in a spiritual context, again suggests the idea of mys-tical union. One might even relate it to the phenomenon of synchronicityitself inasmuch as synchronicity involves the paradoxical uniting of osten-sibly separate aspects of reality (usually, as we have seen, an inner psychicevent and an outer physical event having no normal causal connection).Indeed, Marie-Louise von Franz, developing certain suggestions of Jung’s,has commented on the remarkable incidence of doubling and twinningmotifs in imagery related to synchronicities.43 That Thornton too mayhave had in mind the union of apparently separate aspects of reality,specifically of the spiritual with the material, is suggested by the commentwith which he concludes his narrative: “One of the most profound expe-riences which I gained through this illness and the operation was an in-creased awareness of the Divine Immanence in the material universe.”44

SYMBOLIC, MYTHIC, ANDRITUAL MOTIFS

Altogether here I have isolated twenty incidents within Thornton’s narra-tive. These vary in nature from visions, impressions during meditation,and dreams to physical events either observed by the experiencer but in-dependent of him (for example, hearing the owls that had nested in hisgarden) or else actually happening to him (for example, his symptomsand operation). According to the definition offered earlier—that a syn-chronicity involves the meaningful acausal paralleling of events, usuallyof an inner psychic and an outer physical event—there are nine incidentswithin Thornton’s series that have a strong claim to being synchronistic(5, 11–13, 16–20), or eleven if one includes the implied fulfillment of thetwo dreams reported to Meier (14 and 15).45

Two principal motifs run through the incidents: the owl motif andthe head-wound/operation motif. On first appearance, these two motifsseemed totally unconnected. However, as the series of events unfolded itcame to seem increasingly likely that they were connected. The key to ap-preciating this was an understanding of the motifs symbolically and in relation to a particular myth.

To recapitulate: The main symbolic resonance of the owl motifstemmed for Thornton from its association with the Greek goddess


Athena. Among Athena’s principal attributes are virginity, protectiveness,and divine wisdom. These seemed to Thornton to parallel sufficientlystrongly certain attributes of the Virgin Mary for him to make the furthermove of considering her—the Virgin Mary—also to be symbolized by theowl. Consequently, he was able to view his initial owl experiences as indicating that he had “a special affinity with the Eternal Mother in her aspect of Divine Wisdom.”46

The head-wound/operation motif in its various appearances involveddetails that, on a symbolic level, particularly associated it with the ideas ofspiritual rebirth and the awakening of consciousness, as Thornton himselfappreciated.47 Again, the dream in which the prisoners were awakened bybeing struck on the forehead with an axe—and which resulted in Thorntonhimself suddenly becoming “fully conscious,”48 that is, literally awake—received spiritual coloration from the fact that each prisoner “was foundkneeling in the classical Christian way at a prayer desk.”49

In the light of these symbolic interpretations Thornton was in a po-sition to appreciate at once the relevance to his experiences of the ancientGreek myth of the Birth of Athena. The owl incidents were related to themyth because the owl can symbolize Athena; and the head-wound/opera-tion incidents were also related to the myth because Athena’s birth wassupposed to have been effected by an axe blow to Zeus’s head. Thus,knowledge of the myth revealed to Thornton a hitherto unsuspected con-nection between his two seemingly independent clusters of experiences.Both, it appeared, were aspects of a single emergent pattern of meaning.Furthermore, Thornton was in a position to make a symbolic interpreta-tion of the myth as a whole. He had already related Athena (and the Vir-gin Mary) to the quality of divine wisdom, the vagina-like wound to aspiritual birth, and the head-chopping to awakening consciousness.When his new knowledge of the myth encouraged him to bring these as-sociations together, it was understandable that he should interpret theBirth of Athena symbolically as the spiritual experience of “the birth ofDivine Wisdom in man.”50 The specifically spiritual emphasis in this in-terpretation was reinforced by the dream references to rituals: the ritualof shaving the head (7) expressed renunciation of one’s baser nature infavor of devotion to spiritual principles; and the ritual hymn to Aescu-lapius (8) conveyed the idea of there sometimes being a spiritual dimen-sion involved in the process of physical sickness and recovery.

THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION

It is abundantly clear from the manner in which Thornton responded to hissynchronistic experiences that he himself was viewing them in a spiritual


light. In summary, he appears to have believed that the transcendent or Divine, in the form of the Eternal Mother, was working directly in his life,revealing specific meanings to him and providentially arranging his experi-ences in order to bring about his spiritual transformation.

It is important to note that many of the experiences Thornton re-lates are dreams, visions, meditational realizations, and critical life eventsthat are powerful in their own right. This might lead one to suspect thatthe core of Thornton’s beliefs regarding his relationship to the Divine, aswell as regarding the content of his specific “revelations,” could havebeen sustained even if these experiences had entirely lacked their eventualsynchronistic status. However, I think it can be shown that in the actualevent, synchronicity contributed to the spiritual character of Thornton’sexperiences much that would otherwise have been absent or present onlyto a lesser degree.

First, synchronicity enhanced the sense of numinosity about the ex-periences. It is true that a fairly strong emotional charge had accom-panied some of Thornton’s earlier inner experiences, making themespecially “vivid” or giving them the quality of “visions” that he was“moved by.”51 But there was nothing to equal the “great amazement,”the “shudder, both of dread and holy awe,” or the “shock” that he saysattended his “breathtaking” synchronicity of seeing the bronze owl fromhis hospital bedroom.52

Second, synchronicity made available an inference that strength-ened Thornton’s sense of the transcendent. If two or more events are or-dered but not from within the psychophysical, in the sense that thepsychic events do not cause the correlated physical events or vice versa,then it may be that these events are ordered from a level that transcendsthe psychophysical. Thornton made this inference continually and quitenaturally, most conspicuously when he inferred from his synchronicity ofseeing the bronze owl that he was “under the special patronage of theEternal Mother.”53

Third, synchronicity gave to Thornton’s series of experiences thecharacter of a minor miracle. His various dreams and visions and en-counter with the osteopath all related significantly to his subsequent ill-ness and accompanying experiences, yet there seemed to be no plausiblecausal connection between the two sets of events. Their meaningful co-ordination seemed to transgress the usual limitations of what is consid-ered psychophysically possible.

Fourth, synchronicity justified Thornton in considering the contentof many of his experiences to be revelatory. For once one has inferred theoperation within one’s experiences of something transcendent, it is a sim-ple step to viewing the specific content of those experiences as communi-


cations from the transcendent, especially when that content, as in Thorn-ton’s case, is highly intelligible. This step was taken by Thorntonthroughout. The owl visions revealed to him his “special affinity with theEternal Mother”;54 the head-wound/operation dreams revealed to him a“first intimation of symbolic copulation and a consequent birth”;55 whensynchronistically coordinated, the two series of inner events revealed tohim “the prefiguration of a dynamic experience . . . the birth of DivineWisdom in man”;56 and seeing the bronze owl from his hospital bedroomrevealed to him that he “was under the special patronage of the EternalMother in her aspect of Sedes Sapientiae.”57 Whereas earlier Thorntonspoke of a “special affinity” with the Eternal Mother, now, under the im-pact of his synchronicity, he speaks in more direct and intimate terms ofthe “special patronage,” the “special protection,”58 and “the overwhelm-ing reality of the protecting grace of the Divine Mother.”59

Fifth, synchronicity had a profound unifying effect on the wholefield of Thornton’s experiences. The very fact that an intimate noncausalconnection can be experienced between the outer physical world andone’s inner subjectivity implies that the separateness usually experiencedbetween inner and outer, psychic and physical, or self and world can to asignificant degree be dissolved. This is symbolically expressed, as well asperhaps actualized, in Thornton’s dreaming of two owls merged into one,then subsequently seeing the photograph of the two near-identical figuresof Athena.60 More generally, one could say that through revealing a pro-found paralleling between the psychic and physical events, synchronicityas it were adds a missing half to each, making the psychic events moreembodied and the physical events more ensouled.61 Thus, Thornton’s ap-preciation of the myth of the birth of Athena deepened immensely whenhe found it being symbolically enacted in his own life. Conversely, his ap-preciation of the significance of his physical illness owed much of itsdepth to his ability to relate it to a psychic background of intimately ac-quired symbolic and mythic knowledge. Even further, the sense of unitywas recognized by Thornton as existing not just between the psychic andthe physical but between the psychophysical as a whole and a transcen-dent, spiritual, or divine aspect of reality.62 Hence, he concluded his nar-rative by stating, “One of the most profound things which I gainedthrough this illness and the operation was an increased awareness of theDivine Immanence in the material universe.”63

Sixth, and finally, synchronicity contributed substantially to thetransformative impact of Thornton’s experiences. Through establishingnew relationships among psychic and physical events, synchronicity caneffectively reorder both the general field of the psychophysical and theindividual consciousness of the experiencer. Thus, Thornton’s inner


dreams and visions about owls and about a wound or operation to thehead were brought into a new and more ordered relationship by histimely synchronistic encountering of the myth of the birth of Athena.This in itself deepened his understanding of the process of transformationin which he felt himself to be involved. Later, the synchronistic parallel-ing between his inner experiences and illness precipitated even deepertransformations, such as his experience of symbolic death and rebirth.64

A SKEPTICAL UNDERTOW

Thornton’s account of his experiences is presented in such a way as tomaximize the sense of their spiritual significance, and we have seen thatthey clearly exhibit most of the characteristics of spirit that have beenhighlighted in this study. However, having dwelled at length on thesespiritual implications, it is as well to recall that alternative kinds of inter-pretation are also possible, including interpretations aimed at reducingthe whole episode to normally understood physical and psychological dy-namics. Thornton does not engage with such reductive possibilities—anomission that makes his narrative one-sided and in danger of evoking anequally immoderate skepticism in uncommitted readers. I shall concludemy discussion of Thornton’s experiences by articulating what a stronglyreductive explanation might look like. In doing this, however, I shall at-tempt to maintain a balance both by showing some of the limitations ofsuch attempts at reduction and by drawing closer attention to a numberof detailed features that support a spiritual interpretation.

There are several general reductive strategies that could be invoked.As many commentators have noted,65 it is always possible that events thatseem highly improbable may not be so; that those which really are im-probable can be accounted for by considering that remarkable things dosometimes happen purely by chance; and that the apparent meaningful-ness of such events could stem from the projection of meaning onto them,rather than the discovery of meaning in them. Potentially more damaging,however, are a number of more focused criticisms such as the following.

Thornton tells us that there are three owls on the Leeds coat ofarms.66 One can therefore assume that the image would appear on manypublic buildings around the city as well as on civic publications. Thorn-ton, born and brought up in nearby Bradford, would almost certainlyhave been exposed to this imagery and have absorbed some of it, albeitsubliminally. This could at least partly account for the notable incidenceof owl imagery in his dreams and visions. More specifically, his first-men-tioned dream of owls (3) could explain causally why the owl appearedover the next few days in his impression during meditation and in his


daylight vision (2, 1). As for the actual owls appearing near his garden(5), this is, in spite of Thornton’s assurance that it had never happenedbefore, not, after all, something that could not occur in the normal courseof things, especially since we are considering a period of over five yearsbetween the first and last of the owl incidents related in the narrative(1944–50). Furthermore, once these real owls were in the garden, surely,as suggested earlier, their noisy presence would be a likely cause of anysubsequent inner experiences involving owls (4, 9).

The various head-wound/operation incidents are a little more diffi-cult to explain away on the basis of the information provided. However,one could suppose that the tumor that eventually led to Thornton’s paral-ysis (13) and need for an operation (17–19) was already incipient wheneach of his apparently prefigurative dreams occurred (6–8, 10, 14–15)—the first of them a little over a year before the illness manifested. Thorn-ton could have intimated the problem unconsciously and this intimationcould have caused the projection in dream imagery of hints as to whatwould need to be done about it: namely, the carrying out of an operation(8, 14–15) that would involve shaving the head and splitting open theskull (6–7, 10).

The seemingly impressive interconnection of the two series of inci-dents, as we have seen, can only be appreciated in the light of the myth ofthe Birth of Athena (11)—a myth of which Thornton claims he was un-aware until after both series were well under way. However, it is not im-possible that he had been casually exposed to this myth at some earliertime and that knowledge of it (albeit unconscious knowledge) thenplayed a part in constructing and ordering his subsequent experiences in-volving the owl and head-wound motifs. This is all the more likely whenwe consider that he spent a good deal of time in Zürich moving withinJungian circles where myth in its many varieties was one of the majortopics of interest.

Turning to the remaining physical events, the osteopath may havesubliminally picked up on Thornton’s emergent symptoms, since she wastreating him for a problem to the left foot, and it was the left foot in whichThornton’s paralyzing spasm first appeared. Unconscious awareness ofthis immanent problem could have moved her to relate the most nearlyparallel event in her own experience (12). As for the incident that seemedto make the profoundest impression on Thornton, seeing the bronze owland the statue of Athena from his hospital window (16), the strikingnessof this would be lessened if it were indeed the case that objects such as thisvery owl and statue and other similar representations elsewhere in Leedsthemselves partly caused the appearance of owl imagery in Thornton’sinner experiences in the first place. Finally, as for seeing the photograph in


Rome of the two nearly identical statues of Athena (20) and finding in thisa parallel to the interior vision in which two images of owls seemed tomerge into one (9), this could be a straightforward case of overinterpreta-tion. At least eighteen months separate the two incidents; the parallel onlyworks if one makes the symbolic equation owl � Athena; and the rela-tionship between twoness and oneness is different in each incident (thetwo owls merged visually into one, but the two figurines of Athena re-mained separate and could only be considered “one” insofar as they wereidentical except for the detail on their shields).

These kinds of skeptical argument seem actually to be invited byThornton’s own failure to engage, even implicitly, with a more criticalperspective on his experiences. However, though many of the argumentscontain legitimate points, they do not ultimately undermine either thesynchronistic or the spiritual status of Thornton’s narrative as a whole.

In response to the skeptical interpretation, it can be emphasized thatall of the specific points made in support of it represent possibilities only.For example, Thornton’s state of knowledge or ignorance regarding themyth of the Birth of Athena was most probably just as he stated. Similarly,we should probably credit him with having the sense to realize that real owlshooting in his garden might cause him to dream of owls. If he omits to spec-ify that his dreams occurred prior to the nesting of the owls, this may wellbe because he considers the point too obvious to need mentioning.

If we accept—as there is every reason to—that Thornton did not ini-tially know either that Athena could be symbolized by an owl or that shewas supposedly born through an axe blow to Zeus’s head, then the con-vergence of motifs and happenings within the episode he relates is indeedimpressive. Two initially very different images—the owl and the headwound—turn out to be aspects of a single pattern of meaning and arethereby mutually enriched and completed. One associative pathway leadsfrom the image of the owl to the Greek goddess Athena, from there to theattributes of virginity, protectiveness, and divine wisdom, and thence tothe Virgin Mary—a key devotional figure in Thornton’s life. Anotherpathway leads from the image of a head wound or operation, tinged withan aura of spirituality, to the myth of the Birth of Athena, and thereforealso to the concept of the birth of divine wisdom in man. Finally, thesetwo already convergent clusters of images and associations further con-verge with actual events in Thornton’s life, reflecting what happens to himboth on an outward physical level (to his body and in his environment)and on an inward spiritual level (in regard to his death-and-rebirth expe-rience and the awakening in him of new insights into Divine Immanence).

With regard to the paralleling between inner and outer events (thatis, the synchronicities themselves), many of these are remarkable for the


specificity and unlikeliness of their detail. Images such as shaving thehead and cutting open the skull are hardly common; yet, the latter in par-ticular occurs first in a dream, then in an outwardly encountered myth,and finally in Thornton’s actual life. Similarly striking is the parallel be-tween a dream of a vagina-like wound and encountering a myth about abirth from a wound. Again, the dream about attending an operation notonly occurs exactly a year before Thornton’s actual operation but alsoconspicuously involves a ritual hymn. Thornton, whether conscious ofthe parallel at the time or not, had a mass said on his behalf while he wasbeing operated on. Finally, even if some of the dreams and other appar-ently prefigurative experiences could have been caused by unconsciousawareness of the incipient illness, this still could not explain the circum-stance of going to see the osteopath who herself just happened to havehad an experience closely paralleling Thornton’s, in spite of the very unusual content of the experience.

In general, then, the reductive interpretation depends on argumentsthat are ad hoc and establish only possibilities rather than strong proba-bilities. It implies ungenerously that the experiencer has a poor memory,poor critical faculties, and may also be downright deceptive, while at thesame time possessing a remarkable ability to intuit future states of his or-ganism. It also requires forcibly isolating his experiences from one an-other and thereby occluding such telling features of his account as thesheer quantity of incidents involved, the repetition and remarkable inter-connection of themes expressed by their content, and in general their mu-tually supported intelligibility. In conclusion, while there may be a casefor wanting to temper some of Thornton’s own interpretative excesses,one can explain away his experiences in their entirety only by being evenmore excessive and heavy-handed oneself in the direction of skepticism.


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CHAPTER 5

MULTIPLE SYNCHRONICITIES OF ACHESS GRANDMASTER

We come now, in this and the following chapter, to the exploration of abody of spontaneous synchronistic case material that in certain respects iseven more remarkable than Thornton’s. It too concerns the experiencesprimarily of a single individual for whom the spiritual aspect of reality isof great importance. In this case, however, the material had not been pub-lished at the time of my study of it and had therefore been spared much ofthe selectivity and polishing that have undoubtedly helped shape Thorn-ton’s narrative.1 The present collection is, in fact, considerably more ex-tensive and complex than Thornton’s and seems to have been approachedby the experiencer in a much more inquiring manner. Unlike Thornton,the present experiencer was, at the time of these experiences, not specifi-cally oriented either toward any traditional religious system or toward theframework of Jungian psychology (though he was certainly aware of andsomewhat informed by both). Accordingly, while the present material maynot offer as neat and satisfying a story as does Thornton’s, it compensatesby revealing a richer array of features of synchronicity.

In this chapter I present the coincidences in a predominantly de-scriptive manner. I have three aims in view. First, I wish simply to exhibitthe material, in however partial a form, in order to draw attention to thefact that such complex and extended series of synchronicities do indeedoccur and on occasion get recorded. Second, I wish to show something ofhow the experiencer himself responded to and understood his coinci-dences.2 Third, I wish to prepare the ground for reporting, in the nextchapter, on my attempt at evaluating and interpreting the coincidences.

I begin by giving a brief account of the experiencer, based primarilyon what he reveals about himself in his narrative (mainly details about hisintellectual and spiritual preoccupations). Then I proceed to a discussion ofthe coincidences themselves. After a general description of the material—

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indicating its quantity, the manner of its occurrence and recording, and anumber of its salient features—I offer a condensed retelling of five of theprincipal (interconnected) themes running through it. This is followed byan account of how the experiencer himself responded to and interpretedthese events, emphasizing in particular the ways in which his beliefs and at-titudes appear to have been modified by them. Finally, in further illustra-tion of both the material itself and the experiencer’s responses to it, Ipresent a more detailed account of one small group of coincidences bywhich the experiencer himself was particularly impressed.

THE EXPERIENCER

The material under consideration was made available for me to study byJames Plaskett and consists almost entirely of his personal experiences.3

Plaskett was born on March 18, 1960. During the period of my maincontact with him (August 1991 to late 1993) he lived either in or withincommuting distance of London, which was the principal base for his var-ious occupations as advertising executive, columnist for the New States-man, part owner of two shops, and semiprofessional chess player.Regarding the last of these occupations, he is a world-ranking chessgrandmaster and former British Chess Champion (in 1990). Attendingchess events has involved him in a considerable amount of traveling bothin this country and abroad (mostly in Europe).

I remained in communication with Plaskett by letter and telephone,and had an opportunity to discuss his material with him in some depthwhen he visited me in Lancaster, England, on March 28, 1992. He struckme all along as being intellectually very sharp and particularly intenseand enthusiastic when it comes to examining his coincidence experiences.In July 1993 he completed a questionnaire designed to measure the rela-tive prominence within his personality of introversion and extraversion,and of the four functions of thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation.The results suggested that he was predominantly introversive, havingthinking as his strongest function but with intuition a close second (suchthat on other occasions intuition could easily take precedence).4

The specific areas of Plaskett’s interest that emerged during per-sonal contact were essentially the same as those evident from his writtenmaterial. Of central importance to him appeared to be the question of thescientific status of purported paranormal events.5 This was one of themajor factors informing his conscientious recording of his coincidences.6

It also led him to take an interest (in spite of initial skepticism) in astrol-ogy7 and to be concerned with the question of whether the resultsclaimed for meditative yoga could in any way be demonstrated to others.8


Underlying, or at least related to, the issue of the status of paranormalevents was a long-standing preoccupation with “questions of meaning,purpose, philosophy, religion, etc.”9 He also manifested in his writtenmaterial an interest in problems of moral judgement.10

Regarding the paranormal and related anomalies, he is far frombeing uncritical: as I noted, he was initially skeptical toward the claims ofastrology, and he bluntly dismisses “the infamous Bermuda triangle” as“a concept which I personally regard as nonsense.”11 The kind of coinci-dences that he himself experienced, however, he quickly came to believewere significant, specifically as “an indicator of something glimpsed butyet to be clearly seen or understood.”12 Nevertheless, he cautiously ad-mits that on occasion certain connections he makes “are, perhaps,stretching things a bit”;13 that some of his experiences involve the possi-bility of cryptomnesia;14 and that having “encountered a lot of coinci-dences involving certain themes . . . may have made me on the lookoutfor them.”15

At the level of metaphysical speculation, Plaskett states that “I havenever been able to believe that the universe is an accident or that humanlife is meaningless.”16 He considers that “immortality is the pivot of thehuman condition”17 and writes that “the concept of a Higher Self was oneI had long accepted.”18 He mentions that he developed an early belief in“the superiority of yoga to Religion, for here an act of investigation intothe questions which are of most interest to human minds was possible.”19

This interest in questions of meaning and spiritual development wasapparently first awakened through a book called Teach Yourself Yogathat he found in his family home when he was eleven.20 By the time of hismain coincidence experiences, the range of intellectual and spiritual influ-ences to which he had exposed himself can be assumed to have been fairlybroad: “my search for answers,” he says, “has been eclectic.”21 He men-tions reading Dante’s Divine Comedy “as part of a programme of classi-cal literature I had compiled to read.”22 Elsewhere in his material he refersto a notebook in which he began listing “all the books I could rememberever reading.”23 A photocopied page from this, which he has occasion toreproduce, lists under the heading “Psychology” some thirty-two titles in-cluding The Primal Scream; Lateral Thinking; Access to Inner Worlds;The Undiscovered Self; What Do Women Want?; The Inner Eye of Love;Man and His Symbols; Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle;and New Pathways in Psychology: Maslow and the Post-Freudian Revo-lution.24 Elsewhere again, Plaskett refers to being impressed on reading abook by the transpersonal psychotherapist Roberto Assagioli, and he alsomentions having read Arthur C. Clarke’s works on paranormal and re-lated subjects and Ian Wilson’s The After Death Experience.25 In addition,

Multiple Synchronicities of a Chess Grandmaster 83

he must have acquired a fair amount of knowledge from friends and ac-quaintances with whom he discussed his ideas and experiences. He men-tions a friend who could interpret one of his dreams in terms of motifsfrom Arthurian legend, and other friends among whom was one who wasinterested in Sufism and another who “spoke enthusiastically of thephilosophies of e.g. Krishnamurti and The Bhagwan.”26

Aside from his synchronicities, Plaskett mentions having had some“alterations in my consciousness,” specifically “a handful of experiences,always whilst sleeping, of glorious compassion and sensitivity.” He adds,however, that he appreciates that “I have no right to expect accounts ofsuch experiences to be accepted by others, because there is zero evidencefor them.27 He had set himself early on the goal of achieving samadhi (thefinal consummation of the act of union between personality and Soul) but,he says, “after so many years I felt that, sadly, I was going to have to rec-oncile myself to never achieving my target.” Nevertheless, his altered-stateexperiences “clinched for me that the full potential range of human con-sciousness is way beyond the estimations of mainstream psychology andalso supported the idea that attempts to know more about the Soul maybear fruit.”28

The overall picture that emerges from these scattered biographicaldetails is of someone who lives exposed to a high degree of complexity anddiversity, both in the circumstances of his outward life and inwardly interms of his engagement with cultural and spiritual ideas. He has a lively,sharp, and interested mind that seems to gravitate toward areas of inquiry(notably parapsychology and spirituality) that, as he envisions them, couldpotentially challenge accepted standards of scientific knowledge. In regardto these areas he is, in general, open and exploratory, retaining a healthyedge of criticism while at the same time candidly admitting his own pro-visional beliefs.

It might be argued that if there is a sort of mind that could be par-ticularly apt to discern meaningful connections between events whereothers might not perceive them, Plaskett has such a mind: richly in-formed, intuitive, hungry for meaning in the first place, and with a nat-ural chess player’s ability to pursue complex and subtle avenues ofthought. This raises the question of whether the connections so perceivedgenuinely are anomalous, as the theory of synchronicity would have it, orcan be adequately accounted for in existing causal terms, for instance, asthe projections of an oversubtle mind or the perceptions of a normallyconstituted but usually unnoticed level of interconnection in reality. As Ihave noted, this question is one of the preoccupations, sometimes explicitand sometimes implicit, of the experiencer himself.


THE MATERIAL

Recording and Presentation by the ExperiencerPlaskett reports that in the early months of 1988 he became the focus ofan extraordinary number of complexly and intricately interrelating seriesand clusters of coincidences. Being in the habit of recording interestingevents that happened to him, he immediately began to record these coin-cidences and by August 8, 1991 (when I received my first communicationfrom him), his total collection of incidents ran into the hundreds. How-ever, I shall base my comments in this study on a group of some ninety orso of these (most of them among the earliest) that Plaskett has orderedinto a form of loose narrative.29

Plaskett’s coincidence material, as initially made available to me,consisted of a “Main Text” (of 82 mostly typed pages) plus four “Ap-pendices” (of 38 mostly typed pages). It included photocopies of pho-tographs and of extracts from books, newspapers, personal journals, andthe like, which illustrate the coincidences he describes. Later, in July1992, Plaskett sent me a revised presentation of his narrative. The mate-rial was somewhat better organized but substantially the same. The prin-cipal differences were that a few minor incidents from the initial versionhad been excised and a considerable amount of reflection and speculationon matters arising from his experiences, as well as accounts of a numberof pertinent recent coincidences, had been added (some of it in a fifth ap-pendix). The material now consisted of 133 pages (87 pages of narrativeand 46 pages of appendices).

My comments in this chapter will be based on Plaskett’s revisedpresentation. A factor that therefore needs to be borne in mind is thatby the time he prepared this and sent it to me, he and I had alreadycommunicated several times by letter and telephone and we had metand discussed his material in some depth when he visited Lancaster onMarch 28, 1992. Some of the new emphases that appear in the revisedpresentation may well have been influenced by his exposure to my spe-cific interests in synchronicity. At one point, for example, he quotes(with acknowledgment) the results of some of my research into his ear-lier presentation,30 and there is also a notable increase of references tothemes such as meaning and spirituality and the problem of observa-tion and participation, with which I was particularly concerned. I donot mean to suggest that these were not also genuine preoccupations ofPlaskett’s, but it may be that he decided to accentuate these implica-tions of his material partly because he knew them to be of interest tohis new audience.


However, for the purposes of the present study, this should notcause any problems. My primary aim is to explore spiritually oriented un-derstandings of and responses to synchronicity, which both are possibleand have in fact been found satisfying to some experiencers or to otherswho have considered their reports. I do not suppose that any such under-standing or response does or should arise in total isolation from the moregeneral climate of beliefs and ideas within which a person moves. If Plas-kett’s revised presentation of his material has in fact been influenced byhis conversations with me, this was probably no more so than his initialpresentation was influenced by the real or hypothetical audience (of para-psychologists or friends of varying degrees of intelligence and skepticism)for which that version was written.31 Furthermore, any influence I mayhave had presumably affected things in ways that accorded with what hebelieved and was happy to express anyway. Such, at any rate, is the im-plication of the words with which he closes his revised presentation: “I[now] knew,” he says, “that I had told the story as well as I could.”32

Quantity and Thematic Recurrence

The most obvious feature of Plaskett’s coincidences is their sheer quan-tity. Shortly I shall be retelling some forty or so of the events involved inhis narrative. It seemed necessary to relate this many incidents in order tocreate an adequate impression of the bulk and momentum of the collec-tion as a whole, as well as to provide sufficient material for illustratingthe various points I wish to make in the next chapter. In fact, these fortyplus incidents represent less than half of the entire narrative; and the nar-rative itself represents only a small portion (perhaps less than one-sixth)of Plaskett’s entire coincidence material at the time of my working on it.

A second outstanding characteristic of the material to which atten-tion needs to be drawn here is that the contents of the coincidences seemto express certain recurrent themes. This was noted by Plaskett himselfand given as the reason for his chosen mode of presentation: “becauseparticular THEMES seemed to be recurring,” he wrote in a letter to meaccompanying the first version of his material, “and because the eventsdid not seem unconnected I chose a Narrative rather than a simple list-ing.”33 He proposed the following list of “recurrent motifs” for me tonote in particular:

1. STAR.2. UNICORN.3. GIANT OCTOPUS.4. (RED) EAGLE.


5. PERCEVAL, AND THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE HOLYGRAIL.

6. COMING UP FOR AIR.7. DANTE’S PARADISO.8. SYMBOLS OF THE SOUL i.e. (STAR, UNICORN), FA-

THER (� Son Co-operation), UPRIGHT TRIANGLE,SWAN.

9. CHESS.10. METEORITES.34

When I came to analyze the material myself, I found that this divi-sion into motifs reflected Plaskett’s evaluation of their symbolic signifi-cance at least as much as the frequency of their occurrence (the motif ofthe unicorn, for example, to which Plaskett seems to attach a great dealof importance, occurs only twice). Also, Plaskett’s list overlooks certainmotifs that are significant both in terms of their quantity and in terms oftheir symbolism (for instance, the motif of eyes and vision). It seemed tome more helpful to identify the following five principal themes (each in-corporating several subthemes); they are listed here in the order of ap-pearance of their first main clustering:35

1. Celestial phenomena (including moon, stars, meteorites).2. Arthurian legend (including Parsifal, the Holy Grail, the Round

Table).3. Dante’s Paradiso (including principally the eagle but also Be-

atrice, threefoldness, the rose).4. Sea monsters (including octopus, Leviathan, coming up for air).5. Eyes and vision (including blindness, one-eyedness, the third

eye, new ways of looking).

Additional, less frequently recurring, themes that can be identified include the unicorn (two incidents), identity (six incidents), chess (fiveincidents), the union of opposites (six incidents), and the date Decem-ber 22 (four incidents).

FIVE THEMES

Over the following pages I present a condensed retelling of a substantialselection of incidents relating to the five principal themes mentionedabove. In doing so I have partly disentangled each of the thematic strandsfrom the more complexly interwoven texture of Plaskett’s narrative. Theselection is intended to be fairly representative of the narrative as a whole


and includes less conspicuously impressive incidents as well as the moreconspicuously impressive ones. In fact, disembedding some of the inci-dents from their full contexts has sometimes resulted in them losing a cer-tain amount of their impact; but this seemed an unavoidable loss,hopefully affordable and at any rate compensated for by some gain inclarity. As with the Thornton material in the previous chapter, I havetagged the individual coincidences with numbers in order to help clarifytheir parameters and to facilitate subsequent reference to them.

Celestial Phenomena

There are in all about twenty coincidences referring to this general theme,which includes the subthemes of moon, stars, and meteorites.36 Nine ofthese incidents are related below, three in the present section (1–3) and afurther six in subsequent sections (10, 11, 18, 19, 28, 29). The first maincluster occurred in late-January/early-February 1988.

(1) Plaskett had learned by chance on December 22, 1984, that oneof the craters on the far side of the moon is called “Plaskett’s Crater.”37

Now, in January 1988, he discovered that the first map of the far side ofthe moon was published on the day he was born (March 18, 1960).38 Hewas naturally intrigued that a crater should have been given the samename as him on the very day on which he was born.39

(2) In early February 1988, Plaskett discovered serendipitously(while searching for information on Plaskett’s Crater) that in the constel-lation Monoceros there is an astronomically significant binary star calledPlaskett’s Star. This became particularly meaningful for him when, a fewdays later, he was looking in an encyclopedia for references to Percivaland the Arthurian legends (the content of some of his other recent coinci-dences) and chanced to notice on the inside cover of one volume of the en-cyclopedia a star map and in particular the constellation Monoceros,together with its translation, “The Unicorn,” which until then he did notknow. It happened that only a few days earlier he had given to a short se-quence of coincidences he had written up the title “The Unicorn Spoor.”40

Plaskett had used the image of the unicorn to convey the idea that just asan animal that has never been seen (for example, a unicorn) could be in-ferred to exist if it left behind adequate traces (its “spoor” in the form oftracks and droppings), so the existence of “something” can be inferredfrom the “traces” that are what we experience as coincidences.41

(3) The issue raised here of proving the reality of phenomena thatare not readily amenable to scientific testing was further awakened forPlaskett by another of his coincidences involving celestial phenomena.Craters, such as those on the moon, result from the impact of large mete-


orites. The fall of meteorites is an event that, like alleged miracles andparanormal phenomena (including coincidences), neither is susceptible ofbeing produced to order in a scientifically controlled environment nor,historically, has it been so common in its spontaneous occurrence as al-ways to have been considered indisputably real. Nonetheless, showers ofmeteorites were eventually observed to occur that were sufficient to per-suade the scientific community of the reality of the phenomenon. On thispoint Plaskett reproduces the account of Arthur C. Clarke:

Towards the end of the eighteenth century a commission of theFrench Academy of Science formally endorsed the Jeffersonianviewpoint that stones couldn’t possibly fall from the sky. Un-fortunately for the distinguished members of the commission,the matter was settled rather decisively when many thousanddescended at the town of L’Aigle, not far from Paris itself.42

Plaskett considers that it may be possible for a similar thing to happen inthe case of coincidences (that is, the decisive occurrence of an over-whelming quantity of well-observed incidents). He thus came to make asymbolic association between meteorites and coincidences. He was there-fore intrigued to notice the following when, in May 1988, he read one ofArthur Koestler’s books on coincidence:

In 1970, while I was working on the biography of PaulKammerer, the Austrian biologist who wrote The Law ofthe Series, dealing with coincidences, a whole series of co-incidences seemed to descend on me—like a meteor showeron a summer night.43

He came upon the simile again (he does not specify exactly when) in somewriting of Laurens van der Post who describes how it can happen undercertain circumstances that “coincidences crowd in on one like the salvoesof stars shooting out of the night in Southern Africa towards the close ofthe year.”44

Arthurian Legend

Altogether, about twenty-one coincidences can be seen to refer to this gen-eral theme, whose subthemes include Parsifal, the Holy Grail, and theRound Table. Eight of these incidents are recounted here, seven in the pre-sent section (4–10) and one in a later section (29). The first main clusterwas on February, 14–15, 1988.


(4) On November 5, 1986, Plaskett had a dream that involved theactor Lance Percival. A friend suggested that this might be directing hisattention to Arthurian legend, since two of the prominent Arthurianknights are Lancelot and Percival (or Parsifal). Plaskett knew next tonothing about these legends, though he was now intrigued to find out.However, he did not get around to it until early in 1988 (over fourteenmonths later) when his curiosity was reawakened by media references toa production of Wagner’s opera Parsifal. An article on the opera in TheSunday Times for January 31, 1988, included a picture of the singer whowas performing the part of Parsifal. Plaskett noted a striking resemblancebetween the singer as he appeared in the photograph and himself.45

(5) A fortnight later, on February 14, Plaskett happened to notice abrief appearance of the actor Lance Percival on the television in a clipfrom a 1962 satire program. He remarks that this was almost certainlythe first time the actor had appeared in his life since his dream of 1986.46

(6) These two coincidences were enough to move Plaskett to beginlooking up references to Arthurian legend in the encyclopedias and otherworks that he had at his disposal. While doing so, whole clusters ofArthurian coincidences occurred.47 For example, he had noticed on thetelevision program Antiques Roadshow (broadcast earlier on February14) that one of the items evaluated was a round table. The followingmorning he was, as he says, “pondering intently on whether this antiquehad a legitimate right to be included as part of the Arthurian confluence.”Over the radio, no more than three seconds later, came mention of a pro-posed “round table meeting” of international politicians.48

(7) Shortly after this, the same morning, he saw on a television newsprogram that the composer of the musical Camelot had just died.49

(8) The following day he went to his local library to check in TheRadio Times for the name of the presenter of the radio program that hadmentioned the phrase “round table meeting.” Turning through the pageshe happened to see on the Film Guide page that at 3:00 P.M. on Sunday,February 14 (that is, the same day as he had seen both the antique roundtable and the actor Lance Percival), BBC 1 had shown the film Knightsof the Round Table.50

(9) On the way into the library he had been thinking of his friend RayFerrer whom he had once persuaded to sponsor financially another mancalled Baker. The actor playing King Arthur in the film was Mel Ferrer,while his treacherous nephew Mordred was played by Stanley Baker.51

(10) In pursuing associations to the Arthurian legend, Plaskett in-evitably came across references to the Holy Grail. The grail is, in perhapsthe commonest version of the legend, the dish that was used by Jesus atthe Last Supper and in which later the blood dripping from his wounds


on the cross was caught by Joseph of Arimathea. The latter brought thissacred dish to England where, having mysteriously disappeared, it latercame to be quested after by the knights of King Arthur’s court as a sourceof great spiritual renewal. Plaskett was particularly interested in the de-rivation of the word “grail” as he found it in the encyclopaedia he con-sulted on February 14–15, 1988: “The word may be derived through oldFrench from the Latin crater (“bowl”).”52 Thus, through the word“crater,” two major clusters of coincidences that had begun happening tohim more or less simultaneously—those to do with celestial phenomenaand those to do with Arthurian legend—proved to be intimately linked.

Dante’s Paradiso

Referring to this general theme (which includes the subthemes of theeagle, Beatrice, threefoldness, and the rose) there are again about twentycoincidences in all. Twelve are related here, nine in the present section(11–19) and three in the next section (20, 29, 30). The first main clusterwas on March 6–9, 1988.

(11) On February 15, 1988, just when the Arthurian legend and ce-lestial phenomena coincidence clusters were at their densest, Plaskett bor-rowed from his local library two books he had long been meaning toread: Dante’s Purgatory and Paradise. Purgatory he had already previ-ously read in part, so he soon finished it and moved on to Paradise. Hehad not been aware of the exact structure of this book and was surprisedto find that Dante’s ascent through Paradise, under the guidance of hisbeloved Beatrice, took the form of a cosmic journey first to the moon,then through the planets to the fixed stars, and finally to the Empyreanand the Celestial Rose. Plaskett could not help noticing that his own co-incidental “journey” had also begun with the moon (Plaskett’s Crater)and progressed on to the stars (Plaskett’s Star in the constellation Mono-ceros). Interestingly, Plaskett’s journey also ended up within a rose ofsorts, for Monoceros and Plaskett’s Star exist within the region of theRosette Nebula.53

(12) As with the two previous themes, whole clusters of minor co-incidences began to occur that seemed to reinforce the relevance of theDante theme. The majority occurred while Plaskett was reading CantosXVIII and XIX. In these cantos Dante is in Jupiter, the Heaven of theJust, and observes the souls of the Just who form themselves as lights intoa giant ruby eagle. It was on March 7 when Plaskett first read about thisconnection between justice and the eagle. Later that night, in an episodeof Kojak on television, he watched how a coin thief was trying to makevast sums of money selling stolen coins, which he referred to as “Eagles,”


but was eventually caught and brought to justice. One of the groups ofsinners the souls of the Just denounce in Canto XIX (while in their formas an eagle) is coin counterfeiters.54

(13) While reading this and later watching the television program,Plaskett happened to be wearing a sweater he had been given that had onit the outline, as he describes it, “of a bird of prey, it could be a hawk, afalcon or an Eagle, etched in red over the left breast.”55

(14) The image of the red eagle already had well-established associ-ations for Plaskett, since it was the emblem of the main school he had at-tended.56 He narrates further that he had been unjustly forced to bewithdrawn from this school just a few months before his “A” levels. Theprincipal reason for this was his alleged lethargy. What the school failedeither to know or to take into consideration was that this lethargy was asymptom of incipient diabetes. Years later (in December 1984) Plaskettrevisited the school and vented his accumulated rage at the headmaster.The best the latter could come up with was: “Well thank goodness you’vegot that off your chest,” to which Plaskett had bellowed back: “It’s not aquestion of getting something off my chest! It’s a question of justice!”57

(15) Plaskett stayed up all night on March 7–8, 1988, as he says“reading and re-reading all the coincidences which Cantos 18–20 con-tained for me.” In the morning, while standing talking to his mother inthe hallway, he noticed a letter addressed to his aged grandmother,who had recently been moved to a new rest home: the new place (Plas-kett now learned for the first time) was called Eagle Home in a towncalled Eagle.58

(16) Strangely, Plaskett did not know what Christian and secondnames were indicated by his grandmother’s initials “B. C.” Under the im-pact of the preceding coincidences, however, “a suspicion,” he says,“began to form in my mind.” When his father came downstairs he askedhim. The answer: Beatrice Constance.59

(17) In the Divina Commedia and Vita Nuova, Dante’s Beatrice isassociated with the number nine, to which special symbolic significance isattached as the one number whose only root is three, that is, the HolyTrinity. In the light of this, Plaskett found it “noteworthy” that the dayof his coincidence now, March 8, 1988, was his grandmother Beatrice’s90th birthday.60

18) Plaskett noted some suggestive connections between theDante/eagle motif and the motifs of meteorites and the moon. On May15, 1988, while reflecting on some of his coincidence experiences andtheir possible significance, he suddenly had a realization. This was, inPlaskett’s own words, that


the meteorite shower which forced the French Academy ofScience to concede that there were such things as meteorites, ashower which proved that the authoritative statement of U.S.President Thomas Jefferson that “There are no rocks in thesky, therefore rocks cannot fall from the sky” was false,landed on a town called L’AIGLE—THE EAGLE!61

(19) This in turn stimulated what he judged to be another possiblyrelevant association. It is widely considered that one of the technologi-cally as well as symbolically most significant achievements of mankindduring the twentieth century was the first manned landing on the moon.The significance of the moon within Plaskett’s coincidences has alreadybeen illustrated. Now, following on from his previous realization, he re-called the first words spoken after the Apollo 11 module touched downon the moon: “The Eagle has landed.”62

Sea Monsters

Altogether, about fourteen coincidences refer to this theme, which in-cludes the subthemes octopus, Leviathan, and coming up for air. Elevenare recounted here, ten in the present section (20–28, 30) and one in thenext section (35). The first main cluster was on March 9, 1988.

(20) On March 9, 1988, the day after his main cluster of Dante coin-cidences, a note arrived from the public library informing Plaskett that abook he had ordered (five months previously) had now arrived. This wasArthur C. Clarke’s Chronicles of the Strange and Mysterious. The chapterhe turned to and read first was chapter 5, “Of Monsters and Mermaids.” Inthis the story is told of a shrimp and crab fisherman operating fromBermuda whose boat (a reasonably large vessel at fifty feet) was pulledalong by some creature tugging on one of his laid traps. Chromascope sonarshowed the creature to be pyramid-shaped and all of fifty feet high. This aswell as other indications suggested that the creature was a giant octopus.63

There were several curious things about this for Plaskett. In the first place,the man’s boat was called Trilogy. Obviously such a name has an abun-dance of significance in relation to Dante, whose preoccupation with thenumbers three and nine was noted above (17) and the last book of whosethree-part poem Plaskett was also reading at this time. Furthermore, the spe-cific section he was reading by now—Cantos XXIV to XXVI—also con-tains the third of three discourses (logoi) on faith, hope, and love.64

(21) Then there was an odd incident that had occurred two days pre-viously. Plaskett took down from his bookshelf what he thought was a


volume of sixty-five short stories by W. Somerset Maugham in order tolook up a quote about how there must be an underlying purpose behindthe evolution of such an unlikely thing as human life. By mistake he tookdown instead a similarly jacketed volume containing six novels by GeorgeOrwell. One of these books was copublished by Heinemann/Octopus,while the other was copublished by Secker and Warberg/Octopus. Bothbooks were very large.65

(22) The Orwell book that he had mistakenly taken down hap-pened to fall open in the middle of the novel A Clergyman’s Daughter.This description, “a clergyman’s daughter,” made Plaskett think of an ac-quaintance of his to whom it applied, and since there happened to besome parallels between events in the novel and what he knew of her situ-ation, he tentatively mentioned this to her when he next saw her duringa chess tournament between March 28 and April 6, 1988. The novel inthe Orwell book immediately following A Clergyman’s Daughter wasComing Up for Air. The parallels with his friend’s situation extended tothis novel also, and Plaskett mentioned this too when he saw her. She wasshocked, as she had recently chanced to come upon a copy of this latternovel when she was going through her old things in the attic on a visit toher mother’s. She had actually reread the novel and herself had registeredsome of the parallels.66

(23) The period of her visit to her mother’s had been highly emotivefor her for various reasons, and she had even been moved to write downa dream—something she normally never did. The dream (dated February14, 1988—the date, incidentally, of several of Plaskett’s Arthurian legendcoincidences) involved synchronized swimming. In view of the other co-incidences, she asked had Plaskett recorded any dream on that day. Heconsulted his dream diary and discovered that he too had dreamed aboutsynchronized swimming. On checking, Plaskett could find no televisionprogram broadcast the evening before the dreams that might account forthe appearance of the same image in both their dreams.67

(24) Plaskett’s dream account also mentioned some birds, great-crested grebes. It turned out that during her visit to her mother’s hisfriend had bought a card on the front of which were some birds—great-crested grebes.68

(25) Two days after reading about the giant octopus (one sea monster)Plaskett received a letter from Greenpeace showing on the front a largewhale (another sea monster). The whale was shown coming up for air.69

(26) Furthering the monster association, the whale was referred toin the letter as “Leviathan.” Then references to Leviathan began to ap-pear in the press (for example, The Sunday Times, February 14, 1988) asit was approaching the 400th anniversary, on April 5, of the birth of thephilosopher Thomas Hobbes, author of Leviathan.70


(27) In the Greenpeace letter that Plaskett received, it was recom-mended to boycott all Icelandic fish. On April 5, 1988, about three weeksafter reading this and on the actual anniversary of Hobbes’s birth, whilePlaskett was participating at the chess tournament referred to previously,one of the other competitors offered him some of the snack he was eating:a packet of dried Icelandic fish.71

(28) These coincidences surrounding the theme of sea monsters andthe attendant theme of coming up for air led Plaskett to experiment inmaking a prediction (or “extrapolation” as he preferred to call it) to theeffect that “in the next few days there would be a major news story aboutsomething coming out of the sea . . . something very large, very strangeand which had been submerged for a very long time.” He predicted this tofour reliable and basically skeptical friends. Two days later, on March 15,1988, The Times and The Guardian ran the story about how maritime ar-chaeologists from Oxford University had discovered a huge cargo of an-cient Greek pottery in a wreck off the northern coast of Sicily. The findwas heralded as “one of the most important this century.” Plaskett’s pre-diction thus turned out to be accurate on the following six points: it was amajor news story, it happened within the next few days of the predictionbeing made, it was something very large and very strange, it came from thesea, and it had been submerged there for a very long time. Interestingly,the event tied in with Plaskett’s coincidences even more intimately than hemanaged to predict: the wreck was found in the crater of a live volcano(this largely accounting for the treasure’s excellent state of preservation).72

(29) The next coincidence draws together several of the themes thathave been mentioned so far. In early November 1988, Plaskett borrowedfrom the public library Roberto Assagioli’s book Psychosynthesis. AsPlaskett explains, “‘Psychosynthesis’ was a term coined by Assagioli todescribe a system of psychology and psychoanalysis which incorporatedthe idea of ‘a spiritual reality.’”73 Plaskett found that Assagioli gives thefollowing “Exercises for Spiritual Psychosynthesis”:

We outline here three exercises—each of which combinesvarious techniques—that have been found in practice to beparticularly effective, both in therapy and in self-realisation.These are:

1. Exercise on the legend of the Grail2. Exercise based on Dante’s Divine Comedy3. Exercise of the blossoming of the rose.74

(30) The parallels here between Assagioli’s devised exercises andPlaskett’s spontaneous experiences are striking enough in themselves, but


what truly astounded Plaskett was a particular case history mentioned byAssagioli in the course of his discussion of Dante. Another psychothera-pist, using a technique analogous to Assagioli’s Dante exercise, that is,getting the patient to visualize first of all making a descent (as into the In-ferno) and then making an ascent (as through Purgatory and Paradise),reported that one patient, during the descent stage of the exercise, “en-countered an octopus in the depths of the ocean which threatened to engulf him.”75

Eyes and Vision

This general theme has in all about twelve coincidences referring to it andincludes the subthemes of blindness, one-eyedness, and the idea of a newway of looking (including the concept of the “third eye”). Ten incidents arerelated here (31–34, 36–41). The first main cluster was in early May 1988.

(31) Plaskett records that on March 7, 1988, he found himself“chuckling over the memory of a story” he had told to some chess-play-ing acquaintances in December 1984. The story was an episode from theAmerican television sit-com “Taxi” in which the taxi driver unsuccess-fully tries to overcharge a blind passenger. At 4 A.M. in the morning ofMarch 8—the night Plaskett stayed up rereading Cantos XVIII to XX ofDante’s Paradiso—he saw that “Taxi” was on the television and quicklyrealized that he was watching the very episode he had thought about theprevious day.76

(32) A week later, on March 15, 1988, he experienced an unusualoptical illusion while walking alongside the river that runs through thecenter of Bedford, the Great Ouse: he seemed to see a single cloud in thesky in the form of a sharply defined upright triangle. It seemed so strangethat he called two students over to witness it as well and they wereequally astounded. When Plaskett walked on further, however, it soonbecame apparent that the “cloud” was in fact the dark triangular top ofa white building that was otherwise indistinguishable against the cloud-less sky. About a month later he returned with a camera to try to capturethe effect on film. He did this successfully and the photographs are re-produced among his material. What his photographs also captured, how-ever, quite unintentionally, was the front of the adjacent Swan Hotel: thepedimented top of this building, with a single half-circular window at itscenter, bore a remarkable resemblance, he later discovered, to certain rep-resentations of the “third eye.”77

(33) The main cluster of eye incidents occurred in May 1988. OnMay 2, Plaskett was watching on television a live discussion about peoplewho had been on blind dates. He thought how his brother had met hiswife on a blind date “but how the idea of such an introduction did not


appeal” to him personally. Two days later an issue of a lighthearted chessmagazine called Kingpin arrived in the post with a humorous article de-scribing how the magazine’s charlady was “inconsolable since Jim Plas-kett turned down her offer of a blind date.” Plaskett adds promptly afterquoting this that “in fact no such offer had been made (although I wouldhave turned her down).”78

(34) Another incident occurred on May 8. Plaskett was havingbreakfast in a hotel in the village of Bendern in Switzerland (he was in thecountry for a chess event) and was annoyed by the large number of fliesaround. As he swatted at one, he recalled an unpleasant experience in1985 when he had similarly swatted at a fly and had knocked one of itseyes out—blood from it staining a page in one of his notebooks.79 Withhim in the hotel now he had Laurens van der Post’s book The Heart ofthe Hunter. Later that morning he continued reading from it and on page182 came upon a story of how a group of baboons “fall upon youngMantis and kill him. They batter his head so that the eye falls out, andthey can pick up the eye and play ball with it.”80

(35) Interestingly, when Plaskett consulted his old diary to look upthe incident of swatting the fly’s eye out, he discovered that on the sameday the following coincidence had occurred: he had been thinking of Or-well’s novel Coming Up For Air, then three hours later read in another ofLaurens van der Post’s books, Yet Being Someone Other, the followingwords: “only when that answer ended the primordial dialogue did themen gasp, as if coming up for air out of an unfathomed deep themselves,and start to talk again.”81

(36) In the afternoon of the same day, May 8, 1988, Plaskett’s oppo-nent in the day’s chess game, a diabetic like himself, revealed when theywere talking afterward that “in 1985 he had gone totally blind in his righteye through diabetic complications, and he retained only 80% vision in theother one. There was,” Plaskett adds, “nothing in his demeanour to suggestthat he was partially sighted.”82

(37) The following day the left lens from Plaskett’s glasses fell out.83

(38) On his way to Switzerland Plaskett had bought (for the firsttime ever, he says) a copy of The New Scientist. He was attracted by thecover article on near-death experiences. The issue of the magazine im-pressed him sufficiently to make him think of taking out a subscription,but he considered it a bit pricey. When he arrived home from Switzer-land, however, he found among his mail an unsolicited but personallyaddressed invitation “to take an introductory offer of a discount sub-scription to The New Scientist.”84 He recalled that during a conversa-tion with a friend in 1987 he had said he thought “the phenomenon ofcoincidence meant that what we really needed was ‘a new science’ todeal with it.”85


(39) Also shortly after his return from Switzerland, on May 16,1988, the following occurred. Plaskett turned to The Observer Magazineof the previous day to look at Michael Stean’s chess column on the gamespage. However, on this occasion the chess column was not there; it hadbeen replaced by another column that Plaskett had never seen before,called “Collecting.” The column (which Plaskett reproduces) shows aphotograph of a jewel followed by its description beginning: “Most ar-resting of all miniatures is the single eye, like this right eye of a lady setin a gold brooch with pearls and rubies.”86

(40) A couple of years later, in May 1990, Plaskett experienced afurther coincidence involving the theme of eyes in relation to a book byLaurens van der Post. He was reading page 96 of The Dark Eye in Africain which the author considers, in Plaskett’s words, “the problems [partic-ularly in regard to colonialism] which ensue from European man’s ten-dency to concentrate on the merely visible, physical aspect of realitywhilst tending to neglect the unseen but equally vital spiritual dimensionof the universe.”87 Van der Post referred to William Blake’s appreciationof this problem and to the fact that the poet had actually used the phrase“the one-eyed vision of science.” Plaskett’s television was on in the back-ground showing a program about the Cannes Film Festival. He reportsthat Barry Norman concluded a review of Ken Loach’s film HiddenAgenda, which is about the behavior of the security forces in NorthernIreland, with the words: “At least it brings passion and commitment, al-beit one-eyed, to a serious problem.”88 Plaskett adds that “many peoplealso view the situation in Northern Ireland as a colonial one.”89

(41) One final incident can be mentioned. On March 28, 1992, Plas-kett visited me in Lancaster in order to discuss his coincidence material.When he arrived he realized that he had been in Lancaster before butcould not remember when or why. Then it occurred to him: he had beentraveling from Barrow-in-Furness to Bedford and had had to changecoaches at Lancaster bus station. In the short time he was there he haddone one notable thing: “I had been suffering severe problems with myright contact lens and my eye was smarting so badly that I removed thelens and purchased an eyepatch in the center of Lancaster and immedi-ately donned it.”90

RESPONSE AND INTERPRETATIONSOF THE EXPERIENCER

In writing up his coincidences, Plaskett’s aim appears to have been pri-marily just to record “as simply and clearly as possible” the events thathappened to him.91 He makes no comparable attempt to provide a full


account either of their effect on him or of his interpretation of what theymight mean. Nevertheless, when occasion arises, he does make a numberof informative comments, and he also offers at various points, if not ex-actly a systematic interpretation, then at least some fairly extensive re-flections. I shall now present some of these, beginning with the emotionaland practical effects and then moving on to the ideas that the experiencesseem directly or indirectly to have stimulated.

Numinosity and Practical Effects

First, we can notice a certain general emotional impact, ranging instrength from the mildly intriguing to the powerfully numinous. At theoutset of his account he characterizes his coincidences as a whole in fairlylow-key fashion simply as “events which struck me as improbable andnoteworthy.”92 Later on he describes one particular coincidence (not in-cluded in my selection) as “to my mind a very powerful one.”93 Again, henarrates that while reading chapter 5 of Arthur C. Clarke’s Chronicles ofthe Strange and Mysterious—a book that he reckoned contained “mostinteresting material”—certain coincidences occurred (for example, 20and 21) that “were even more intriguing than the content of the chapteritself.”94 Then, speaking toward the end of his account, he states that forhim his experiences as a whole “have mysteriously combined to form anuminous and enduring source of wonder.”95

Frequently, these kinds of numinous effects had practical conse-quences. Often this took the form of stimulating Plaskett to pursue a cer-tain line of research. For instance, following the coincidence involving theactor Lance Percival (5) he was prompted to look up all the informationimmediately available to him on Arthurian legend.96 Again, he “was sostruck by the cluster of eagle-related coincidences [which happened in re-lation to his reading of Dante’s Paradiso (for example, 12–14)] that I readand re-read through Cantos 18–20 throughout the night.”97

Sometimes the practical effect took the form of trying to get his co-incidences witnessed and evaluated by others. When one coincidence(again not related above) involving a magazine article occurred at a chessevent, he “grabbed the attention of a passing player” and emphasized tohim and the person reading the magazine “that they should not forgetwhere precisely this magazine had been open as I went by. . . . I fear theywere each rather bemused! But I felt I had to bring witnesses in.”98 Moregenerally, Plaskett says he was “so struck by the clusterings involving TheUnicorn, The Grail, The Eagle, The Giant Octopus, etc. that I felt I had toshow it to some ‘authority’ on such matters to see what their reactionwould be.”99


The Nature of Coincidence

A more conspicuous effect of the coincidences was to reveal to Plaskett,or stimulate him to further reflection on, certain ideas or insights. Manyof these concern the nature and significance of coincidences themselves.One incident, for example (involving the tracks and droppings of un-known animals), confirmed for him his understanding of coincidence as “an indicator of something glimpsed but yet to be clearly seen or un-derstood.”100 Quite apart from this uncertainty regarding the signi-ficance of the phenomenon as a whole, he came to realize that, withsome coincidences, even the meanings of their individual contents often“are not so immediately or clearly apparent and require a little morethought.” 101 He also came to appreciate that some “were not isolatedincidents but revealed a surprising interconnectedness.”102 Regardingthe status of coincidence in terms of its possible scientific or rational ac-ceptability, he refers approvingly to Koestler’s point that “the stock ar-gument against accepting meaningful coincidence in principle, that itbreaks the laws of causality, no longer holds because . . . in modernphysics the principle of causality is no longer [universally] applicable”(Plaskett’s words).103 More significantly still, Plaskett reflects on theability of coincidence to transmute the seemingly meaningless in life into something truly meaningful (see especially the discussion of the Hartston Case below).104

Related to this transmutative power of coincidence is the fact thatcoincidences seem to occur more frequently in response to or in coop-eration with intentionality on the part of the experiencer—a phenome-non that Plaskett several times refers to as the “triggering” effect. In hisown words: “so many of the coincidences . . . happened when I was in-vestigating or pondering a related matter”;105 “there was the sense ofthe act of investigation ‘triggering’ the coincidence”;106 “an act of en-quiry into meaning (however casually undertaken) leads to a coinci-dence”;107 “I had the strong sense that my own acts of investigationwere having a ‘triggering’ effect upon the coincidences.”108 In furthercomment on this phenomenon, he quotes with approval some words ofLaurens van der Post:

I have noticed that when one renounces an established orderand the protection of prescribed patterns of behaviour and,out of a longing for new meaning, commits oneself to an un-certain future, like a fish to the sea, that [sic in Plaskett] co-incidences crowd fast in on one like the salvoes of starsshooting out of the night in Southern Africa towards theclose of the year.109


This Plaskett relates to his own experience in regard to his coincidences.In explanation for an act he describes of having wrenched himself freefrom a set of personally stifling circumstances, he says: “I only knew thatI had to strike out on my own if my inquiries into meaning and purposewere to progress,” adding: “So I did . . . and soon after many coinci-dences descended upon me.”110

Finally, Plaskett expresses the belief that coincidences can also serveto communicate to their experiencer not just general ideas but very spe-cific messages: “But when,” he says, after the very last incident related inhis narrative, “my hunch that there was truth in the ostensibly paradoxi-cal assertion that ‘The Journey Is The Goal’ was confirmed through a co-incidence that could not have been more perfectly timed, then I knew thatI had told the story as well as I could.”111

Meaning and Symbols

Plaskett was also stimulated by his experiences to reflect on the nature ofmeaning. We have noted his belief that an inquiry into meaning can gen-erate coincidences, and also that within the coincidences themselves thereexist levels of meaning beyond the mere fact of their improbability (see,further, the Hartston Case below).112 In fact, it seems that the improba-bility could actually stimulate inquiries into meaning: “The improbabilityof this,” he remarks, after one coincidence (30) that linked two of hismain thematic clusters, “struck me so forcibly that I began to take theidea of the meaning underlying symbols even more seriously.”113 Furtherthan this, certain meaningful coincidences centering on the seasonal turn-ing point of the winter solstice led him to speculate that there might be“something profoundly Seasonal” about meaning: “Was it really so pre-posterous,” he reports himself as musing, “to propose the Taoist conceptthat the Universe might contain other seasons; seasons of meaning?”114

He does not elaborate too much on what this might entail, but it is clearlya further expression of his deep inability “to believe that the universe isan accident or that human life is meaningless.”115

Plaskett’s coincidence experiences alerted him in particular to themeaning of symbols: as he says, their conspicuously symbolic content “in-creased the attention I was giving to the significance of SYMBOLS.”116 Aneleven-page appendix to his narrative reproduces extensive extracts fromvarious writings either showing symbolism in action (for example, in thespiritually oriented psychotherapeutic context of psychosynthesis), or dis-cussing the nature of symbolism generally, or, again, offering meanings ofspecific symbols.117 One thought occurring to him was that “in the light ofsuch coincidences it seemed reasonable to postulate that some symbolshave a power and significance wholly independent of the human mind.”118


The Nature of Reality

Also emerging out of Plaskett’s response to his coincidence experienceswere certain broader speculations concerning the nature of reality or theuniverse. He says he has “always thought that the universe is too organ-ised to be just an accident,” and although he claims to “subscribe to nofaith,” his coincidences have strengthened this belief:

I found it very difficult to dismiss e.g. the coincidences withThe Eagle, The Giant Octopus, or The Grail as just chanceand hence I was naturally drawn towards theological specu-lations (for how much stronger do arguments for a Deity,stemming from “Good Design”, become when such improba-ble clusters of coincidences are taken into consideration!?)119

He admits that “‘the problem of pain’ troubled me greatly,” but re-lates how he found that reflections arising from one of his coincidencesled him to a more “nonjudgmental attitude” in regard to this problem.120

Elsewhere he expresses his sense of the importance of the qualitative as-pect of reality in addition to its quantitative aspect, finding support forthe assertion of the former in the developments of modern physics, whereit is appreciated that even within a rigorous experimental situation theobserver inevitably contributes in some way to what is observed.121

Sometimes he is more specific about precisely what qualitative aspectsthere might be to reality. After one coincidence, for example, he com-ments: “Experiences like that, as well as many others that I have men-tioned, left me in no doubt that Man does have a Soul or that he may,and probably should, seek to unify himself with it.”122 Then, toward thevery end of his material, again with reference to his experiences as awhole, he states confidently that “it turns out that it is the things that Ifound by the wayside [that is, the seemingly trivial coincidences] that endup proving the reality of the spiritual dimension of the universe.”123

Proof of the Paranormal/Toward a New Science

Plaskett is not concerned simply with asserting or believing in the exis-tence of a spiritual dimension of reality. He wishes to see steps taken to-ward establishing its reality on a foundation as solid as that whichsupports the truths of science. This preoccupation comes to a focus forhim in the problem of proving the paranormal. He sets out the problemin a series of lengthy quotes from authors evaluating the (more or less)current status of claims for the paranormal. Some, such as Martin Gard-


ner, express extreme skepticism regarding the failure of parapsychologyto produce a single paranormal result that can be repeated under con-trolled conditions. Others, such as Colin Wilson, point to the mountainsof anecdotal evidence, much of it from totally creditable witnesses.124 Inthe light of this division of viewpoint, Plaskett articulates the question forhimself in the following way:

Proving the anecdotal . . . attempting to provide PROOF forthat which is not replicable, is beyond human control and isnot amenable to laboratory investigation . . . HOW?125

At one point he expresses enthusiasm for a seemingly simple exper-iment that would involve checking the veridicality of observations al-legedly made by patients while undergoing a near-death experience, whenclinically they should not have been able to make those observations.126

However, the strongest help in addressing the problem of proving theparanormal he considers to be the phenomenon of coincidence itself. Hemakes his case in the form of two analogies. One analogy is with thetracks and droppings of animals. If one finds animal tracks and drop-pings, that alone is good reason to suppose the existence of the animal,even if one has never actually seen the animal itself. Similarly with coin-cidences: even if we have not yet grasped what principle or mechanism(or indeed what being) may be responsible for them, nevertheless theirvery presence is an indication that something is going on that it may beworthwhile seeking to identify. In Plaskett’s own words:

Just as new droppings or tracks are not DIRECT PERCEP-TION of a phenomenon but are intimations of something un-known, so meaningful coincidence is to me an indicator ofsomething glimpsed but yet to be clearly seen or understood.127

A second analogous situation impressed Plaskett even more. It con-cerns the events at the beginning of the nineteenth century that led theFrench Academy of Science to accept the reality of meteorites. As we sawearlier (3, 18), the academy had “formally endorsed the Jeffersonianviewpoint that stones couldn’t possibly fall from the sky,” but had beenforced to recant “when many thousand descended at the town of L’Aigle,not far from Paris itself.”128 The fall of these meteorites was unpre-dictable and nonrepeatable, yet it was an event sufficient to overturn dog-matic skepticism and establish a scientific fact. It was able to do this, wemay suppose, for two principal reasons: because of the sheer quantity ofmeteorites that fell and because they left physical evidence in the form of


many actual pieces of meteoric rock (as Plaskett emphasizes, “ROCK-SOLID EVIDENCE”).129 Similarly with coincidence experiences: theytoo represent a phenomenon of questionable status, whose occurrence isneither predictable nor repeatable to order; but—especially in the case ofa collection like Plaskett’s—they too can be persuasive by their sheerquantity and, if recorded and documented carefully as are Plaskett’s experiences, can also leave forms of physical evidence.130

Impressive and suggestive though these analogies were to Plaskett,and may be to others, nonetheless they would not prove very easy to sus-tain in the face of reductionistic scientific attitudes. Accordingly, Plaskettturns his attention also to the question of whether new approaches to sci-ence might not be developed—or are in the process of being developed al-ready. The impetus to reflect along these lines was given largely by thecoincidences centering on the motif of “eyes” (31–34, 36–41)—with theirvarious suggestions concerning the issues of limited vision and the needfor new forms of perception. In particular, we can notice that the repro-duced extract from Laurens van der Post’s The Heart of the Hunter,which described the story of how Mantis was killed and battered until hiseye fell out (34), continues immediately with the author remarking: “Ifthere is any better image of what the over-critical faculty, the one-sidedmind of pure reason, does to new creation, I have yet to meet it.”131 Alsoin this spirit, Plaskett quotes at length from Michael Shallis on a sug-gested distinction between “Descriptive Science and Instructional Sci-ence”—the latter more suited to understanding and manipulating thequantitative aspect of reality, the former to grasping its qualitative as-pect.132 Elsewhere, Plaskett reflects on the possibility of bridging the fre-quent divide between reason and belief through some such reconcilingnotion as “reason to believe.”133 He concludes by asking whether weought not to recognize “A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING SCIEN-TIFIC AND BEING RATIONAL.”134

Precisely what kind of science Plaskett envisages by statements suchas the preceding is not spelled out in any detail, but there are one or twohints in the observations and reflections we have encountered already. Henotes, for example, that modern physics is no longer governed exclusivelyby the principle of causality but is a field replete with paradox as well aswith a growing recognition of the participatory role of the experimenterin obtaining results.135 The concept of participation strikes him as of par-ticular relevance, since this gives some kind of scientific validation to hisnotion of “a person’s experience of Meaning depending upon his atti-tudes and the manner of his living, that is to say the way in which hePARTICIPATES in life.”136


A DETAILED EXAMPLE:THE HARTSTON CASE

I shall conclude this chapter by presenting in somewhat greater detail onefurther small group of interrelated coincidences. I do so largely because itwould have seemed an omission not to show at least a few coincidencesmore or less in their full context. Another consideration, however, is thatthe selected small cluster illustrates particularly well many of the featuresand responses to which I have been drawing attention in the foregoing.Finally, it seemed important to present this cluster of coincidences be-cause Plaskett himself expresses the view that it contains some of themost significant of his experiences.

Grandmasterly Castling

Around the end of March 1988 Plaskett began making attempts to havehis coincidence material evaluated by a reputable person. Initial attemptsto interest one of the major authorities in British parapsychology—SusanBlackmore or Brian Inglis—were not very productive, though the latterdid encourage him to improve the presentation of his material. These im-provements were carried out while Plaskett was present at an internationalchess tournament in Oakham, England, between March 28 and April 6,1988. After completing them, he says, “I wondered who might serve as arational and intelligent person to whom I could offer the material for con-sideration as soon as possible.”137 At the chess tournament there wassomeone present who seemed to meet Plaskett’s requirements particularlywell: William Hartston, a Cambridge-educated mathematician, industrialpsychologist, prolific writer and television commentator on the subject ofchess, and an international master of the game. He seemed appropriate fora number of reasons: he had a highly developed critical intelligence; he was already an acquaintance of Plaskett’s; he happened to be in thesame place as Plaskett just at the time when he had got his material intotidy form; and, as we have seen, Plaskett had been unable seriously to interest any of the authorities in parapsychology he had approached. Plas-kett also recalled that, in a previous conversation, Hartston had men-tioned having been asked to review a book about Michel and FrançoiseGauquelins’s controversial work on astrology; he had expressed disap-proval of the unethical way some scientists had behaved when confrontedwith the Gauquelins’s data, and had concluded with the sentiment that“more time should be spent on the investigation of such matters.”138

Memory of this conversation prompted Plaskett to think that Hartston,


even though he was initially “utterly sceptical towards the idea of mean-ingful coincidence,”139 nevertheless “might be somehow more receptivethan most people.”140 After all, Plaskett says of himself that he “was notinterested in ‘preaching to the converted.’”141

Without even explaining what it was, Plaskett handed his materialto Hartston and asked him for his comments. When he phoned to getthese a few days later, Hartston had an incident of his own to report. Hehad been reading the coincidence numbered (18) in the collection Plasketthad given him. It was titled “FORGETTING ABOUT CASTLING IN AGAME WHERE A GM NORM WAS AT STAKE” and concerned anumber of instances of chess games where the factor determining victoryor defeat was the ability (or inability) of one of the players to make themove “castles” at a much later stage in the game than is usual.142 In eachcase the result of the game was crucial to one of the players gaining (orfailing to gain) the required number of points to qualify for what is calleda grandmaster norm.143

While Hartston was reading this coincidence his television was on,showing an episode of a drama series called A Very Peculiar Practice,which concerns a medical practice in a Midlands university. The beginningof the episode in question was of a dream sequence based on IngmarBergman’s film The Seventh Seal. In the film a knight plays a game ofchess against Death and, in spite of having the advantage of the whitepieces, loses. This would have been an impressive coincidence in itself, butit quickly became more so, since part of the twist given to the Bergman in-cident in its reworking for the television program was to have a characterin the dream scenario say, “I’m not very good at chess: I don’t even knowhow to castle.”144 According to Plaskett, “Hartston was so struck by theimprobability of this that he asked ‘How can that happen?’”145

The incident does indeed seem unlikely—that chess and castlingshould be mentioned on television just as Hartston (himself probably thebest-known chess commentator on British television) was reading Plas-kett’s coincidence precisely about chess and castling. Initially, Plasketttoo “thought only about the high improbability of the coincidence,” butlater, “very probably prompted by the discovery of something meaning-ful associated with so many of the coincidences that I had encountered, Ilooked for some discharge of meaning accompanying Hartston’s experi-ence.”146 Doing so, he found within the coincidence several further par-allels to Hartston’s situation.

The castling incidents that Hartston was reading about had all con-cerned critical moments where the result meant the difference betweenachieving or not achieving a grandmaster norm. It so happened that as a


young man Hartston himself had narrowly missed becoming the firstBritish player to gain the title of grandmaster. In fact, it was calculatedin retrospect that he had missed gaining one of his norms, and thereby thetitle, by the narrowest of margins possible. Plaskett explains that “hadthe average rating of each of the competitors [in the critical event] beenjust one point higher, then the score that Hartston made would have beensufficient for a GM norm, i.e. IT WAS STATISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLEFOR HIM TO HAVE COME ANY CLOSER TO THE GM NORM.”147

This alone made the coincidence singularly pertinent to Hartston.But Plaskett discerned further connections. He narrates how in 1976Hartston was supplanted as England’s top chess player by Tony Miles,who then also went on to become England’s first grandmaster. Hartston’swife then left him for Miles, whom she subsequently married.148 The par-ticular connection Plaskett finds between these personal details and thepresent incident is that Hartston’s wife “was and is a medical doctor”149

who “is now practising in the midlands”150 (the television program AVery Peculiar Practice, it will be remembered, concerned a medical prac-tice in the Midlands). Plaskett also adds some further, rather more tenu-ous, associations: for example, he notes, presumably by way of commenton the above-mentioned “home-breaking,” that “an Englishman’s homeis his castle”;151 also that to castle late in a game of chess, especially athigh tournament level, is itself a very peculiar practice; and he suggests apossible relevance of the allusion to The Seventh Seal in the fact that inchess a pawn that advances beyond the seventh and onto the eighth rank“undergoes a stupendous increase in strength and status and becomes a queen.”152

Plaskett suggested to Hartston that “in the light of this symbolic in-terpretation he was the only man in the world who could have had thecoincidence”—a judgment with which Hartston apparently agreed.153

Plaskett also reports that he himself “found Hartston’s experience ‘en-couraging’; it was as if Life were providing a form of confirmation that inrecording my coincidences in the first place I was ‘on to something.’”154

Coincidentally Hartston

However, this was not the end of the matter. Five and a half monthslater, on August 15, 1988, Plaskett’s friend, the woman who had beeninvolved with him in the coincidences concerning Orwell’s novel Com-ing Up for Air (22) and the dreams of synchronized swimming (23),bought in Cambridge a book she thought looked intriguing: The Para-normal by Stan Gooch. The book contains a twelve-page subsection


entitled “Synchronicity and Coincidence.” “After her own experi-ences,” Plaskett relates, “it was naturally to that chapter that [she]turned first. When she started to read it she got a shock.”155 The sec-tion began as follows:

In a recent pilot television programme designed to test the lim-its of intelligence, the names of the three contestants wereHartston, Burton and Walkington. All three end in -ton, andall three are names of towns—except for one letter (Harston isa town). The contestants were not of course chosen because oftheir names but because each of them had done extremely wellin similar competitions on previous occasions.156

After giving two further similar examples, Gooch comments: “Theseitems are three examples of what we call coincidence. They do not signifyanything. In respect of such happenings we often prefix the word coinci-dence with the word ‘meaningless’—we say ‘a meaningless coinci-dence.’”157

When Plaskett showed the book to Hartston, the latter confirmedthat he was indeed the person named. Plaskett observed that Hartston isactually “the man who happens to be named first in the first paragraphof the first example in the section [on coincidence].” This paralleled forPlaskett the fact that he himself had chosen Hartston (for the reasonsmentioned above) “to be the first critic of my [coincidence] material.”158

The impact on Plaskett of the whole Hartston episode was particu-larly profound:

If I were made to choose one component of this whole busi-ness which demonstrated to me that there was somethinggoing on other than chance then it would have to be this.

How could it “just happen” that I could have picked uponthe person with whom Gooch begins the section on Synchronic-ity and Coincidence, a person who then went on to encounter acoincidence that astonished him whilst reading my material?159

The Limits of Intelligence

Again, however, this initial response was merely to the event’s improba-bility. He says that “it was only after some time had elapsed that I beganto think more about the possible meaning that it might contain” (Plas-kett’s emphasis).160 He narrates that on the evening of October 19, 1991,it occurred to him that the fact that the program on which Hartston had


appeared was “designed to test the limits of intelligence” may have been“somehow very pertinent indeed.” Hartston himself is highly intelligentand, as an industrial psychologist, has published works dealing with“thought processes, calculation, psychology, etc.”; while Plaskett, quiteapart from his thinking ability as a chess player, says of himself that “inpondering the great questions of Philosophy and Theology I was aware ofgrappling with topics very much at the limits of Human intelligence.”161

The morning after having these thoughts Plaskett bought a copy ofThe Mail on Sunday and turned to the chess column written by Hartston.The column contained a humorous sketch in which Hartston had to de-fend the thinking practices of chess players against the criticisms of apolar bear. At one point the polar bear pointed out that in the time ittakes some players to make a single move, “you could read a short book,or watch a film, or attend a postgraduate lecture on some topic at the lim-its of human knowledge.”162

The timeliness of coming upon this particular expression, and writ-ten by Hartston of all people, seemed, Plaskett says, “to support myhunch that straining the mind on matters at the limits of our intelligencehad something to do with it [that is, the significance of coincidence].”163

Though he expresses uncertainty as to “precisely what” this “something”might be, he nonetheless suggests that it may involve the way in whichour lives can be made meaningful:

Given that Gooch started his section with this incident inorder to emphasise that it is meaningless, and that it was sub-sequently transmuted in my life into perhaps the most mean-ingful and staggering of coincidences, the question presentsitself: Is there any such thing as a truly meaningless event?164

The initial meaninglessness of the event described by Gooch is made evengreater when one considers that it only works as a coincidence at all ifone overlooks the mismatch between Hartston’s name and the name ofthe town Harston. In the light of this, Plaskett concludes his narration ofthe episode with the following reflection: “Perhaps the greatest signifi-cance of Gooch’s choice of ‘non-event’ is how anything is meaningful inthe sense that it has the potential to be transmogrified through our attempts to find meaning.”165

Paralleling the transmutation of the meaningless into the meaning-ful, there was, according to Plaskett, a transformation within Hartston:initially, he was “utterly sceptical towards the idea of meaningful coinci-dence,” but Plaskett quotes him as saying “‘since I’ve had my experienceI’m not so sure any more!’”166 Persuading a highly intelligent skeptic that


there may be important dimensions to reality not adequately covered bythe mainstream scientific worldview is precisely what Plaskett hoped coincidence experiences such as his own might be able to do.167

Comments

This small series of experiences illustrates very clearly the so-called “trig-gering” effect that can happen in relation to coincidences. Hartston’s actof examining Plaskett’s material appeared to trigger the castling coinci-dence. Similarly, Plaskett’s search for a suitable critic of his materialseemed to trigger the coincidence involving Hartston and Gooch’s bookThe Paranormal. Again, Plaskett’s active reflection on the possible rela-tionship between coincidence and the limits of intelligence seemed to trig-ger the incident involving Hartston’s article in The Mail on Sunday.

With regard to probability, we can note that the castling coinci-dence seems to be rendered particularly improbable by the fine detail andspecificity of the points of paralleling involved (not just chess but castling,not just castling but castling in a context with particularly meaningful as-sociations for Hartston, and so on). This improbability is increased fur-ther by the fact that this first incident is followed and developed by tworelated coincidences.

The Hartston episode also illustrates the way one can move, as doesPlaskett, from being impressed initially by the improbability of a coinci-dence to later appreciating its possible meaning. This move is explicit bothin the castling coincidence and in the coincidence involving Gooch’s book.

The particular meanings that Plaskett discerned in the Hartston coin-cidences reflect or epitomize some of those that preoccupied him in relationto his narrative as a whole. One meaning apparently being communicatedwas that coincidence has something to do with the limits of human intelli-gence. This relates to Plaskett’s general concern with exploring ways ofthinking and understanding (such as parapsychology, spirituality, and newscience), which go beyond the limitations of the current consensus world-view. Again, the Hartston case seems to be making an important commu-nication regarding the nature of meaning itself: that even the apparentlymost meaningless events can be transformed into something highly mean-ingful if one adopts an actively investigative attitude toward them. This re-flects Plaskett’s thoughts elsewhere in his material regarding the ultimatemeaningfulness of the universe and the importance of actively participatingin reality rather than just being an observer of it.

One final feature can be noted about this case that will come to beparticularly relevant to the analysis I attempt in the next chapter. This isthat the content and context of the first two of the Hartston incidents


have to do specifically with the subject of coincidence itself. Hartston ex-perienced the castling coincidence in relation to the coincidence materialhe was reading at the time; and the coincidence involving Gooch’s bookrelated specifically to a section of it on synchronicity and coincidence.These coincidences involving coincidence draw attention to a frequentlyoccurring feature that might be called the self-referring nature of coinci-dence. There are two aspects to this: one is where (as we have just notedhere) the content or context of a coincidence has to do with coincidenceitself; the other is where the content, though not necessarily directly to dowith coincidence, expresses meanings that are suggested also by the es-sential form of coincidence regardless of its specific content. This latterkind of self-referring is also exemplified by the Hartston incidents. Forexample, the essential form of any coincidence (regardless of its specificcontent) is such that it presents one with an experiential and conceptualenigma; it baffles one’s feelings and thoughts and stimulates one to inves-tigate beyond the normal range of one’s understanding. This would ap-pear to be reflected by the specific content of the Hartston coincidences,which express the idea of the limits of human intelligence. Again, it is in-trinsic to the essential form of coincidence that it creates or reveals mean-ingful relationships between events that in themselves are either notmeaningful or are not meaningful in that particular way. To appreciatethis, one need only scan the contents of some of the incidents in Plaskett’snarrative: in the absence of the coincidental relationship, there would bevery little significance in, for example, the names Baker and Ferrer (9),the remark of a coin thief in an episode of Kojak (12), the image of great-crested grebes (24), or being offered a morsel of dried Icelandic fish (27).It is their role within the structure of a coincidence that renders these im-ages and events meaningful (or more meaningful). This idea, of the mean-ingless being made meaningful, is, as we saw, reflected in the specificcontent of the coincidence involving Gooch’s book.


yanulada


CHAPTER 6

THE SELF-REVELATION OFSYNCHRONICITY AS SPIRIT

A MODERN GRAIL STORY

In the last chapter I introduced and presented a selection of incidents fromthe extended synchronistic narrative of James Plaskett. I then showed howhe responded to these synchronicities. Doing all of this required a consid-erable amount of rearranging and sorting of his material in order to high-light the most frequently recurring themes and the experiencer’s majorconceptual preoccupations. My aim, however, was to allow the materialand the experiencer’s response to it to emerge predominantly on their ownterms. In the present chapter, by contrast, I give myself much freer rein toengage in evaluations and interpretations of my own. For the most partthese will not be incompatible with Plaskett’s own responses, but neitherwill they be unduly limited by those responses. First, I briefly comparePlaskett’s material with Thornton’s (examined in chapter 4). I then assessthe bearing of Plaskett’s material as a whole on the question of the possi-ble spiritual status of synchronicity. Finally, I report on my own attemptat a more sustained and systematic, but admittedly still highly speculative,symbolic interpretation of this material.

PLASKETT AND THORNTON:A BRIEF COMPARISON

In many ways Plaskett’s material is similar to Thornton’s and supportsobservations made with reference to the latter. Both sets of material con-sist of an extensive collection of synchronicities experienced and recordedby a single individual and found by that individual to be spiritually ofgreat relevance. At the very least, this demonstrates the (not necessarily

113

obvious) possibility of the occurrence of such bodies of coincidences andof their being responded to on a spiritual level.

Besides the sheer quantity of events involved, both collections alsoexhibit a remarkable recurrence and interconnection of motifs; in bothcases the content proves to be richly symbolic; and both experiencers feltthey could discern a high level of intelligibility within their experiences.The relevance of each of these shared features to the possible spiritual sta-tus of synchronicity will be discussed later in the chapter.

There are, however, equally significant differences between the twocollections. As I have already noted, Plaskett’s material, unlike Thornton’s,was not originally intended for publication and can therefore be assumedto have been subjected to considerably less selectivity and polishing—a fac-tor rendering it more difficult to study but also in many ways more re-warding.1 I also noted that Plaskett, unlike Thornton, has no specificorientation either toward Jungian psychology or toward any traditional religion. He is much more critically engaged with his material and in par-ticular is greatly concerned with problems of proving the reality of para-psychological and spiritual phenomena. Indeed, synchronicities seem muchmore central to Plaskett’s spirituality than they do to Thornton’s. WhereasThornton already confidently assumes the existence of the spiritual dimen-sion and its operation in his life, in Plaskett’s case this is precisely one of themessages seemingly being conveyed to him by his synchronicities. Again, aswas noted in chapter 4, almost all of the essential spiritual content ofThornton’s experiences had already been conveyed to him by his purelyinner experiences (dreams, visions, and so forth). The subsequent develop-ment of these into synchronicities served primarily to intensify them andrender them more actual, gripping, and effective. With Plaskett’s experi-ences, by contrast, it was usually within the synchronicities themselves thatthe spiritually relevant content first appeared.

Certain of the differences between the two collections derive fromthe fact that, while Thornton’s is indeed extensive by comparison withthe kind of one-off or small clusters of experiences that are usually re-ported, Plaskett’s is vastly more extensive even than Thornton’s, con-sisting as it does of some ninety-odd relevant incidents as opposed totwenty.2 Thus, in Plaskett’s material the thematic repetition is greater,both in terms of the number of themes and the number of occurrences of each theme, and correspondingly the interconnection of themes is alsomuch more complex. This greater range and complexity of content mayalso render Plaskett’s material open to a much greater variety of possi-ble symbolic interpretations—a feature with which I shall have to con-tend when I hazard my own interpretation in a later section. The greater


variety in Plaskett’s synchronicities extends to their content, the contextsand mediums in which they are expressed, and the particular manner oftheir occurrence.

Regarding the content, whereas in Thornton’s case there were basi-cally just two motifs, with Plaskett’s material there are, in my selectionalone, five major themes each containing three or four subthemes. Thematerial moves among and weaves together such diverse images as themoon, Parsifal, an eagle, a giant octopus, and blindness; or again, stars,the Holy Grail, Beatrice, Leviathan, and one-eyedness.

As for the contexts and mediums in which the images are expressedin the two collections, in Thornton’s narrative all of the inner psychicevents occur as dreams (except for three “visions”), while the outer physi-cal events involve variously the behavior of live owls, hearing a lecture,being told a personal anecdote, suffering an illness and being operated on,and seeing statues on a building and in a photograph. The contexts andmediums in Plaskett’s material include (on the more psychic level) dreams,memories, thoughts, and states of ongoing interest, and (on the more phys-ical level) books, newspapers, mail, television and radio, past and presentsituations and events, personal communications, an item of clothing, andthe facade of a building. Out of this variety in the Plaskett case a few kindsof context preponderate. On the psychic side, the commonest context is astate of ongoing interest, often evoked and sustained by previous physicalincidents (for example, Plaskett’s ongoing interest in the symbol of theeagle is evoked and sustained by his frequent encounters with this image insuch physical contexts as a book, a television program, an item of clothing,and so on). This contrasts with Thornton’s predominant psychic context ofdreams. On the physical side, Plaskett’s most frequent context is books,then to a lesser degree newspapers and magazines, and also television andradio. This also contrasts with Thornton, none of whose incidents involvethese particular physical contexts. Probably not much more can be con-cluded from this than that coincidences can and do involve practically anykind of psychic and physical context.

Plaskett’s collection also displays a greater variety of particular man-ners or forms in which the coincidences occur. Thornton’s coincidences al-most all follow the typical pattern of a conspicuously psychic event beingfollowed by a conspicuously physical event. Many of Plaskett’s coinci-dences likewise take this form (for example, 6, 9, 31, 34, 38).3 The ma-jority, however, as I have just indicated, have as their first event anongoing state of interest that is in fact largely the result of previous phys-ical events. In these cases one might want to consider the first event phys-ical rather than psychic, this then being followed by a second event that is

The Self-Revelation of Synchronicity as Spirit 115

also physical (for example, 1, 8, 10, 12, 21). Most of Plaskett’s coinci-dences have him as their sole experiencer, but there are a few that are in-terpersonal, involving the parallel experiences of two people (for example,23, 24). Of these, one consists of two parallel psychic events (23), anotherof one psychic and one physical event (24). A further form of coincidenceis where the decisive “second” event simultaneously parallels a number ofprevious events (for example, 10, 29). Again, there is one instance inwhich the coincidence is explicitly precognitive or predictive in form (28).Finally, we can notice certain coincidences involving the subject of coinci-dence itself (for example, 3, 23).4 Some of these forms do occur withinThornton’s narrative—in particular, I noted a strong, if unconscious, pre-dictive element in his experiences. Generally speaking, however, Plaskett’sis clearly the more varied collection on the count of manner and form ofoccurrence as on the other counts. On the one hand, this is no doubt pri-marily due to the fact that his collection is considerably more extensivethan Thornton’s. On the other hand, it may also partly stem from Thorn-ton’s having, under the Jungian influence, a more rigorous though at thesame time narrower preconception of what kinds of conjunctions ofevents are to be allowed to qualify as synchronistic.5

THE SPIRITUAL STATUSOF SYNCHRONICITY

As seen in the previous chapter, Plaskett considered that his synchronisticexperiences provided some kind of proof of—or at least “reason to be-lieve in—the reality of the paranormal.6 More specifically, they “provedthe reality of the spiritual dimension of the universe.”7 While I do not be-lieve synchronicities can, or should be expected to, prove anything in anystrong sense about the ultimate nature of reality, I agree that they can indeed provide a body of suggestive evidence.

There are certain strategies that can be adopted to try to undercutany strong, or even moderate, claim for the evidential value of experi-ences such as Plaskett’s. Individually each of the coincidences could un-doubtedly be accounted for in terms of various reductive arguments fromstatistics and mainstream psychology.8 More generally, the apparent highincidence of unlikely connections in Plaskett’s material may be due to thefact that, on the one hand, he is exposed to an exceedingly large quantityof very diverse information anyway (most of his experiences involve highinformation sources such as books, newspapers, television, and so forth),while, on the other hand, the connections that he allows to count as sig-nificant are in many cases between fairly broad and sweeping themesrather than between specific details. Again, one could suggest that the


nature of Plaskett’s mind as characterized in chapter 5, its very strengthsin fact, could dispose him to find connections where in reality there arenone, or if there are, it is simply that they are usually unnoticed ratherthan that they are genuinely anomalous. Furthermore, Plaskett’s long-standing beliefs and urgent desire to achieve something spiritually couldhave provided the psychological motives for misperceiving or misinter-preting his experiences. Compounding these difficulties is that Plasketthas then ordered his experiences into a narrative that, even if to a lesserdegree than the Thornton material, is, one might argue, undoubtedly con-structed so as to present his experiences (a choice selection of them) in thestrongest light possible.

However, as I have noted several times already, criticisms such asthese for the most part address themselves to possibilities only. In the caseof each individual coincidence, and indeed of the collection as a whole, itremains equally possible that the events are, as they appear to be on theface of it, genuinely anomalous, suggesting the operation of some as yetinadequately appreciated feature of reality. This latter possibility gainsadditional support from some of the outstanding features of the Plaskettmaterial to which attention has already briefly been drawn.

In the first place, many of Plaskett’s incidents are indeed individuallyquite striking in terms of their improbability. He reports that he was par-ticularly impressed by the coincidence involving his discovery that Plas-kett’s Star is in the constellation of The Unicorn (2); likewise by a coupleof the coincidences involving his grandmother in relation to Dante’s Par-adiso (15–16); and above all by the small group of incidents involvingWilliam Hartston. Those I personally found most impressive include thetwo involving the dreams of synchronized swimming and great-crestedgrebes (23, 24), the successful prediction or “extrapolation” relating tothe imminent emergence of something from the sea (28), and those in-volving Assagioli’s “Exercises for Spiritual Psychosynthesis” (29, 30).9

Then there is the sheer quantity of incidents involved. If many ofPlaskett’s coincidences individually are improbable to a significant andsuggestive degree, it is reasonable to suppose that the cumulative im-probability of the collection as a whole must be considerably more so.That some coincidences might be expected to happen just in the normalcourse of things can readily be admitted, but it is another matter alto-gether when one is talking about tens and hundreds of such incidents.

Furthermore, this great volume of material has arisen, both as awhole and in its component clusters, within relatively short time spans.All except four (29, 30, 40, 41) of the incidents I have related occurredduring the period from the end of January to the middle of May 1988,and a single day—February 14, 1988—provided the focus for no fewer


than six of them (5, 6, 8, 10, 23, 26). This close temporal proximity ofmost of the incidents to one another constitutes a significant detail intheir paralleling and, hence, contributes further to their overall improba-bility and impressiveness.

Again, not only is there a remarkable quantity and often quality ofincidents, but their contents display an equally or even more remarkablerecurrence of motifs. Within my limited selection there are eight conspic-uous references to the theme of celestial phenomena (1–3, 10, 11, 18, 19,28), eight to the theme of Arthurian legend (4–10, 29), twelve to that ofDante’s Paradiso (11–20, 29, 30), ten to that of sea monsters (20–23,25–28, 30, 35), and ten to that of eyes and vision (31–34, 36–41). It istrue that once a theme was highlighted the experiencer would then verylikely have been alert to any further occurrences of it, but this does nottake away from the fact that in most cases the recurring appearances ofthe given theme are, so far as one can tell, causally independent of one an-other. Such spontaneous reiteration can only add to the unlikeliness andsignificance of the happening as a whole.

Finally, there is the often surprising and ingenious interconnectionbetween the themes. It not infrequently happens that a coincidence occurswhose content seems simultaneously to express two (or more) hitherto ap-parently unrelated themes. Tracing the most conspicuous of these inter-connections,10 I found that the themes of Arthurian legend and of Dante’sParadiso are each related at various points to all of the other four princi-pal themes, while the themes of celestial phenomena and sea monsters areeach related to all themes except that of eyes and vision; the latter is there-fore conspicuously related only to the themes of Arthurian legend andDante’s Paradiso. To give some specific examples: the theme of celestialphenomena is conspicuously linked to the themes of Arthurian legend(10), Dante’s Paradiso (11, 18, 19), and sea monsters (28); while the co-incidence involving Assagioli’s “Exercises for Spiritual Psychosynthesis”(29) serves to interconnect the four themes of celestial phenomena,Arthurian legend, Dante’s Paradiso, and sea monsters.11 The unlikelinessof these interconnections contributes again to the improbability and,hence arguably, to the evidential status of the collection as a whole.

There is, however, another factor that can make a decisive contribu-tion to one’s evaluation of the possible evidential status of coincidences:their meaningfulness. That two events should fall together acausally andparallel each other in their content in a detailed way may be improbableand impressive. But it is considerably more improbable and impressive if,in addition to this detailed paralleling, the content of the coincidence orsome aspect of the manner of its occurrence happens also to be highlymeaningful (either just to the experiencer or more generally).


The issue of meaning is extremely broad and complex. In the previ-ous chapter I presented an account of how Plaskett responded to his coin-cidences, the meanings that he considered them to be communicating tohim more or less directly, and the further meanings to which they gaverise through stimulating or modifying certain processes of reflection. Itwill be remembered that he attached great importance in this respect tothe conspicuously symbolic nature of the content of his coincidences.Many if not most of the contents of his narrative—the moon, the stars,the knight Parsifal, the Holy Grail, the eagle, the rose, the octopus, thethird eye—are symbolically resonant. However, while registering thisfact, Plaskett did not actually pursue the possibilities of symbolic analysisvery far. It is, therefore, to my own attempt at such symbolic analysis thatI now turn.

THE SELF-REVELATION OFSYNCHRONICITY: AN EXPERIMENT

IN INTERPRETATION

Plaskett’s own interpretation of his experiences is very restrained, not sur-prisingly considering that his primary stated aim was not interpretativebut just “to present things as simply and clearly as possible.”12 In whatfollows I report on my own attempt at a fuller interpretation of Plaskett’smaterial, both as a whole and with specific attention to the incidentscomprising one of his major themes. In doing this I am hypothesizing thatthere is indeed further meaning to be discerned in the synchronicities. Ofsome of this possible meaning Plaskett was or could have been aware, butof much else he almost certainly was not aware. However, everything Isuggest in the following is, I believe, broadly consonant with Plaskett’sown interpretative statements, such as they are.

Method

My procedure in attempting to access further meaning in Plaskett’s ex-periences was as follows. First, I identified all the individual syn-chronicities within his narrative and noted their interrelationships interms of both chronology and content. Regarding the latter, it becameapparent, as Plaskett had already suggested would be the case, that thecontent could be grouped according to a number of principal themes.Particular attention was given to the five largest of these thematicgroupings (the five from which my selections in the previous chapterwere made). Each coincidence was then analyzed individually, with spe-cific attention being paid to its possible symbolic character. The first


twenty-one incidents (reckoned chronologically) were analyzed in great-est depth;13 these mostly concerned the themes of celestial phenomenaand Arthurian legend. The remaining incidents were analyzed after thesame pattern as the first twenty-one but in less depth.

The actual symbolic analysis of the synchronistic contents involvedan imaginative and intuitive attempt to discern deeper, possibly arche-typal, levels of meaning within the immediately presented images orideas. Imagination and intuition were not, however, given entirely freerein. In general, I proceeded, by what seemed plausible stages, from themore explicit and uncontroversial levels of meaning to the progressivelymore embedded and tentative levels. Three principal checks were em-ployed to minimize the element of arbitrariness in my interpretations.First, any relevant subjective-level information was taken into account.This included Plaskett’s response to or beliefs about his experiences, aswell as indications as to his immediate or long-term background preoc-cupations and circumstances. Effectively, then, I attempted to keep my in-terpretation as compatible as possible with Plaskett’s own. Secondly, themeaning I felt able to elicit from any given synchronistic content was re-lated to the meanings elicited from other of Plaskett’s synchronicities.Bolder interpretations were only admitted if they could be substantiatedby the prefiguration, repetition, or development of the same symbolicmotif in other of his synchronicities. Third, comparison was made, whereit seemed possible and appropriate, between my proposed symbolic in-terpretation of any content and precedents for this specific interpretationas they exist in previous studies of symbols whether within mythological,religious, literary, and other cultural contexts, or as they may have arisenwithin such more spontaneous contexts as dreams, visions, and indeedsynchronicities themselves.

Finally, out of the whole body of symbolic meanings that I elicitedfrom Plaskett’s material I attempted to construct a more or less coherentoverall interpretation, a summary of which is presented below. Insofar asit lends itself to articulation, it is principally this that might be consideredthe “revelation” communicated by this particular set of synchronicities.

Clearly, there are a number of limitations and potential problemswith this procedure. First, the data that I am analyzing consist of verbalreports at several removes from any actual experiences. In each case therewould be first the original experience, followed shortly by Plaskett’s moreor less immediate response to it. Some time afterward, perhaps on thesame day but often upward of a week later, there was Plaskett’s initialrecording of the incident. Then there was his construction of his variousrecords into a narrative; next, his revision of this narrative; and finally,my own interpretative engagement. In most cases, one can suppose that


the basic shape of his original experience will have survived through all ofthis, but important nuances and details will undoubtedly sometimes havebeen lost, while others, not present in the original experience, may wellhave accrued.

Again, there is the problem presented by the very complexity andrichness of material such as Plaskett’s. Even granting its symbolical charac-ter—in fact, perhaps especially because of this—it may be open to toomany varied possibilities of interpretation, with no guarantee that my own,or Plaskett’s for that matter, is more valid than another that gives signifi-cantly different emphases. It is true that the material is far from being to-tally open, and the three checks mentioned above might save one from theworst kinds of interpretative excess, but nonetheless it has to be acknowl-edged that considerable latitude for divergence exists. The direction inwhich any particular person’s interpretation goes probably depends to asignificant extent on that person’s own interests and preoccupations.

The whole issue is further complicated by the possibility that someof the incidents considered may not actually be synchronicities after all,while of those that almost certainly are, some may not in fact be relatedto the thematic groupings in which they have been included but may berelated to a quite different pattern of meaning or even be of wholly inde-pendent significance. The mistaken attempt to accommodate these rogueincidents could cause an otherwise accurate interpretation to be deflectedquite off the mark.

Symbolic analysis similar in most essentials to that which I at-tempted on Plaskett’s synchronicity material is regularly undertakenwithin the context of Jungian psychotherapy with regard to the dreamsand other fantasy products (including occasional synchronicities) of theanalysand.14 In fact, the Jungian practice has served as the inspiration andprimary model for this present attempt at analysis. There is, however, acrucial difference between the two kinds of undertaking. In the psy-chotherapeutic context the analyst remains in close communication withthe person whose experiences are being analyzed, and therefore has accessto vastly greater amounts of subjective-level information. In particular, theanalyst can receive continual feedback in the form of the experiencer’sfeeling-evaluation of any proposed interpretation of the experiences.15 Inthe context of my analysis, by contrast, only very limited amounts of sub-jective-level information have been available and it has been impracticableto seek more; likewise, it has not been feasible to try to obtain much detailed feedback from the experiencer concerning my interpretations.

This point made, however, it is also possible that this lack of sub-jective-level information may not be as serious a limitation as it initiallyappears. It may, for instance, be the case that the primary focus of one’s


analysis of material such as we are dealing with here should be on the ob-jective rather than the subjective level. Too much attention to the subjec-tive level might obscure more important levels of collective and objectivemeaning—just as, for example, too much attention to the role of an au-thor’s personal life in the genesis of a novel might obscure rather than en-hance one’s appreciation of the work’s more universal significance.Again, whatever particular orientation was guiding one’s subjective-levelinterpretation would undoubtedly bring problems and limitations of itsown. The context of a Jungian analysis, for instance, would be likely toinvolve certain deeply embedded theoretical and personal expectations inboth the analysand and the analyst. These expectations would certainlycolor the resulting interpretations but not necessarily in ways that wouldoptimally elucidate the material itself.

It can be noted, further, that Jung outlined a methodology for in-terpreting spontaneous fantasy products even in the absence of subjec-tive-level information concerning the experiencer. With specific referenceto dreams, he first cautions against any attempt to deduce their meaningfrom some supposed “general theory of dreams” or from other “precon-ceived opinions.”16 He then remarks:

We are therefore obliged to adopt the method we would usein deciphering a fragmentary text or one containing unknownwords: we examine the context. The meaning of the unknownword may become evident when we compare a series of pas-sages in which it occurs.17

In the normal psychotherapeutic situation a large part of the “context” towhich Jung here refers consists precisely of the subjective psychologicalbackground of the experiencer. However, when Jung was attempting to analyze the series of dreams and visualizations presented in Part II ofPsychology and Alchemy, he was faced with a body of material that wasnot obtained under his direct observation and whose more subjective dimension therefore could not be explored in any great depth by him. He proceeded, accordingly, “as if I had had the dreams myself and weretherefore in a position to supply the context.”18 He explains further:

This procedure, if applied to isolated dreams of someone un-known to me personally, would indeed be a gross technicalblunder. But here we are not dealing with isolated dreams;they form a coherent series in the course of which the meaninggradually unfolds more or less of its own accord. The series isthe context which the dreamer himself supplies. It is as if not


one text but many lay before us, throwing light from all sideson the unknown terms, so that a reading of all the texts is suf-ficient to elucidate the difficult passages in each individualone. . . . Of course the interpretation of each individual pas-sage is bound to be largely conjecture, but the series as awhole gives us all the clues we need to correct any possible errors in the preceding passages.19

Though with somewhat less confidence than is implied in Jung’s con-cluding statement, this is essentially the method I endeavored to employin regard to Plaskett’s synchronistic experiences, which likewise seem toform a “coherent series” whose “meaning gradually unfolds more or lessof its own accord.”

Finally, I should make clear that I do not consider the interpretationoffered below to be in any way conclusive. I wish to demonstrate onlythat some such interpretation is both possible and warranted. The mate-rial seems to me to exhibit sufficient intelligibility on the surface to sug-gest that there may be even greater intelligibility to be uncovered if oneexplores more deeply. I believe, therefore, that my own interpretation,even though nowhere near being conclusive, does have some plausibilityand at the very least exemplifies the potential richness of such symbolicand spiritually oriented analyses.

Conceptual Themes

Applying the procedures outlined above, I discerned a number of concep-tual themes running through the five content themes identified in the pre-vious chapter. Initially, these conceptual themes included identity andparticipation; justice, correction, and integration; the existence of a tran-scendent or spiritual dimension, and journeying toward and connectingwith this dimension; and proof of the paranormal, new perception, andthe nature of synchronicity. Ultimately, however, they proved to be re-solvable into the following four: identity, transformation, spirituality,and synchronicity.20 Each of these was traced in its various aspectsthrough the material as a whole and in particular through the selection offorty-one incidents related in the previous chapter.

Identity

The concept of identity is emphasized repeatedly throughout Plaskett’smaterial. It emerges first through the highlighting of his surname in thetwo coincidences involving Plaskett’s Crater and Plaskett’s Star (1, 2).


The first of these also draws attention to his date of birth. Next, Plas-kett’s actual physical appearance was highlighted through the coinci-dence involving the remarkable resemblance between himself and thesinger playing the part of Parsifal in Wagner’s opera (4). Then there wasan implicit identification with Dante established by means of the sym-bolic paralleling of Plaskett’s “coincidental” journey with the cosmicjourney of the Italian poet through paradise (11). Further incidents evok-ing the notion of identity might include the presence of the coincidentallysignificant symbol of the eagle on an article of clothing Plaskett waswearing (13), his behaving in a certain manner that paralleled that of thesouls of the Just in Dante’s poem (14), the mention of his actual person ina magazine item (33), and his learning of the effects on a chess opponentof an illness—diabetes—from which he also suffers (36). This repeatedemphasizing of aspects of Plaskett’s own identity—his surname, date ofbirth, appearance, experiences, clothing, behavior, actual person, andcondition of health—can only serve to increase consciousness of the issueof identity generally.

More specifically, there are indications that Plaskett’s experienceshelped make him more sharply aware that there is a spiritual aspect toidentity (“that Man does have a Soul”21). A number of coincidences, inaddition to highlighting the concept of identity, also suggest the existenceof and movement toward a higher or spiritual level of reality. Plaskett’sCrater (1) and Plaskett’s Star (2) are celestial, that is to say, heavenly,phenomena. Understand this symbolically, equating the heavenly withthe spiritual, and Plaskett’s surname and, hence, his identity appear them-selves to be, or at least to be intimately attached to, spiritual phenomena.Again, the two figures with whom Plaskett has been implicitly identified,Parsifal (4) and Dante (11), are among the preeminent spiritual seekers inWestern literature. Thus, attention is focused on that aspect of Plaskett’sidentity that is also spiritually seeking.

Another nuance to the identity theme—this one very clearly pickedup on by the experiencer himself—is the emphasis on participation. Thisis suggested by the serendipitous manner in which certain coincidencesinvolving the identity theme occurred: for example, it was while search-ing for information about Plaskett’s Crater that the experiencer “acci-dentally” learned of the existence of Plaskett’s Star in the constellation ofMonoceros (2). Most clearly, however, the significance of participation isimplicit in the coincidences identifying Plaskett with Parsifal (4, 5), as isexplained in my amplification of those incidents below. In fact, the no-tion of identity will be seen to extend even further, to the point where theexperiencer seemed virtually to be enacting aspects of the archetypaldrama of Parsifal, inasmuch as he, like Parsifal, was seeking a form of


Grail (4, 10; also see below). Similarly, Plaskett seemed to be enacting as-pects of Dante’s spiritual drama, undergoing like him a symbolic journeythrough the cosmos (11).22 This sense of enactment became more explicitthrough the coincidence involving Assagioli’s psychosynthesis exercises(29). In these exercises, “symbols” (sometimes consisting of short epi-sodes) from the legend of the Grail and from Dante’s Divine Comedy arepresented to a therapeutic group, each member of which is then asked “tointroject the symbol, so to speak, to identify himself with it.”23 There re-mains, however, the important difference that whereas with these exer-cises the symbolic identification and enactment is something undergonein a deliberate and controlled way, in Plaskett’s coincidence experiencesthe identification and enactment came about spontaneously.

Transformation

The second conceptual theme that seemed to me to be particularly in evi-dence when I analyzed Plaskett’s material was that of transformation.Again, this involved several aspects, many of them, naturally enough, relating to the preceding concept of identity.

First, there is the idea of a transformation from ignorance to knowl-edge, and from lesser consciousness to greater consciousness. This is im-plicit in the coincidence involving the first map of the far side of the moon(1): territory that had always been inaccessible to human consciousnessnow for the first time became known and charted. Interpret this symbol-ically, with the far side of the moon representing the unconscious, and wehave allusion to a transformation from unconsciousness to consciousness.A similar idea is embedded in the story of Parsifal (evoked by coinci-dences 4, 5, and 10): as we shall see later in this chapter, Parsifal has toundergo a significant transformation in his understanding before he canrealize his destiny of achieving the Grail. Again, the celestial journey ofDante, and analogously that of Plaskett (11), consists of a series of pro-gressive transformations into ever higher and subtler states of conscious-ness and insight.

The idea of a transformation from normal psychophysical levelsof experience to a spiritual level of experience, and vice versa, seems tobe evoked quite often. Plaskett’s Crater (1), being on the far side ofearth’s satellite the moon, lies at the extreme outer limit of connected-ness to the terrestrial and faces into the heavenly or, symbolically un-derstood, spiritual spaces beyond. Plaskett’s Star (2), in turn, actually issituated out in these heavenly or spiritual spaces. Conversely, meteorites(3) are phenomena that come from out in the heavens and impact onthe earth and moon—symbolically, a spiritual influence imprinting


itself on the psychophysical. Again, within Arthurian legend (4–10) acrucial role is played by the quest for the Grail (10) as a spiritual objectcapable of effecting a profound regenerative transformation both of so-ciety and of nature itself (discussed later). Also, within many of the co-incidences grouped under the theme of sea monsters (20–30) there isimplied the notion of two levels of reality (water on the one hand, air orland on the other), with significant transitions and transformations tak-ing place between them. Thus, there is the idea of “coming up for air”(22, 25; also 35) with the symbolic implication that sustenance needs tobe drawn from a higher level. This, however, is balanced by the coinci-dence involving the great-crested grebes (24); these freshwater divingbirds obtain their sustenance by penetrating from the higher dimension(air) into the lower (water). This suggests symbolically that not only isthe psycho-physical dependent on the spiritual but that in some sensethe reverse can also be the case.

Another aspect of the transformation theme is the idea of a move-ment toward greater completeness of being. In general, this takes theform of first recognizing some negativized or neglected feature of realityand then positivizing this through integrating it or discovering in it someunexpected value. This is the case with the motif of the giant octopus (20,21, 30). One coincidence draws attention simply to the existence of thismonstrous creature below the sea, it being detected largely through itsnegative power to interfere with the vessel Trilogy on the surface (20).Another coincidence then associates the image of the large octopus witha couple of books (21) that are subsequently found to contain informa-tion that proves positively valuable in relation to Plaskett’s experiences(22). However, the transformation from an implicitly negative to an im-plicitly positive valuation of the octopus is clearest in the incident involv-ing the report of the visualization exercise in which a patient imaginally“encountered an octopus in the depths of the ocean which threatened toengulf him” (30). The report reproduced by Plaskett continues: “the sub-ject was asked to visualise himself going up towards the surface, takingthe octopus with him. On reaching the surface, to the surprise of the sub-ject, the octopus changed itself into the face of his mother.”24 Similarly,in the communication that Plaskett received from Greenpeace (25), therewas an attempt to transform the image of the whale from that of some-thing monstrous and unintelligent, and therefore to be exploited, into “asymbol of all that is vast and mysterious in the natural world . . . intelli-gent, intuitive, perhaps even thoughtful.”25 Finally, an even more explicitexpression of the idea of something from below the sea being found tohave great value when raised to the surface is the incident involving thediscovery of the treasure of ancient Greek pottery (28).


In the case of each of these coincidences, it is a straightforward moveto equate the sea with the unconscious. One can then interpret the octopus,whale, and pottery as contents of the unconscious. These, so long as theyremain unconscious, are negative, misunderstood, or simply useless. How-ever, when brought to the surface or at least related to more sympatheti-cally, that is, when integrated more effectively into consciousness, they turnout to have unsuspected value. In terms of personal identity, the more suc-cessful one is at integrating the unconscious with consciousness, the morecomplete and balanced is one likely to be as a person.

Failure to achieve an adequate level of integration is likely to lead todangerous imbalance, and it may be this that is alluded to in those coin-cidences that highlight the motif of justice and injustice. This motif isfairly explicit in some of the incidents involving the image of the eagle inrelation to Dante’s Paradiso (12, 13, and, especially, 14). It is perhapsalso more subtly implied in other incidents in which either Dante’s poemor the image of the eagle forms part of the background. Thus, the coinci-dences involving Plaskett’s grandmother in relation to the “Eagle” resthome and the name “Beatrice” (15, 16) may be alluding to an injustice orimbalance in regard to the archetypal feminine (the “Grand Mother,”Magna Mater). Similarly, the coincidence of the decisive meteoriteshower landing on the French town of L’Aigle (Eagle) (18) may suggestthe correction of a form of injustice in regard to the status of what wehave found to be symbolized by the meteorites, namely, coincidencesthemselves and in particular coincidences viewed as celestially originating(that is, spiritual) phenomena. The latter suggestion is supported to someextent by the coincidence involving the two parallel dreams of synchro-nized swimming (23): here what is submerged—and therefore symboli-cally in need of being brought into consciousness—is a synchronizedactivity, which of course can readily be equated with the phenomenon ofsynchronicity itself.

There may also be an indication in Plaskett’s coincidences as to whatfurther state might be achieved as a result of these transformations towardgreater consciousness and completeness: they may lead to a new kind of vi-sion or perception. This is suggested generally by the whole content themeof “Eyes and vision” (31–41). More particularly we can note that the blindtaxi passenger, in outwitting the driver who tries to cheat him (31), showsevidence of having a kind of sensitivity or perception other than normal vi-sion. One might observe in regard to this that prophets and seers—thosewho can perceive in nonordinary dimensions—are sometimes depicted inmyth as being physically blind (for example, Tiresias). Again, there is thecoincidence involving the illusion of the triangular cloud and Plaskett’s in-advertent photographing of the pediment resembling the symbol of the


“third eye” (32): here a misperception results serendipitously in the evoca-tion of a symbol of higher perception—suggesting perhaps that the trans-formation into higher forms of perception may require a temporary loss ofaccurate perception on normal levels.

In further support of this last suggestion, we can note that in oneversion of the Grail legend the knight Lancelot (a figure evoked by coin-cidences 4 and 5) at one point in his adventures actually caught sight ofthe Grail but approached too close to its radiance so that he was blindedand paralyzed for twenty-four days. When he eventually revived, he said,“I have seen so great marvels that my tongue may not describe them . . .and were it not for my great sins, I should have seen more.”26 This can becompared with one of Dante’s experiences. In a section of the Paradisoreproduced by Plaskett (Canto XXVI),27 Dante is depicted as having beenblinded by the intensity of the love he encounters while being questionedby St. John. However, through answering St. John’s questions satisfacto-rily he shows that he is capable of understanding the deeper nature oflove. As a result, his sight is restored and, unlike Lancelot, he is enabledto “see more.” Thus, in both cases, temporary blindness is the result ofencountering a higher level of truth or reality. However, whereas Dantepossesses the integrity and insight to pass into the corresponding higherlevel of perception and therefore eventually achieves the supreme visionof God, Lancelot lacks this integrity and so is unable to become a fullachiever of the Grail and all that it represents spiritually.

Spirituality

The pervasiveness of the conceptual theme of spirituality should already befairly clear. It is implied, for example, in the titles of two of the overarchingcontent themes I have identified (“Celestial Phenomena” and “Dante’s Par-adiso”) as well as in a number of other subthemes (“the Grail”—this beingan object of spiritual quest; “coming up for air”—that suggests penetrationinto a higher dimension of reality;28 and “new vision”—referring, aboveall, to a newly acquired form of spiritual perception).

Again, it is possible to differentiate several aspects of the spiritual-ity theme. First, there are coincidences that draw attention simply to theexistence of the spiritual dimension. Among these are the incident involv-ing Plaskett’s Star (2), which evokes the possibility of a spiritual aspect toone’s identity; those involving meteorites (3, 18), which suggest the pos-sibility of concrete effects originating from a transcendent source; and theGrail coincidence (10), which highlights this preeminent symbol of spirit.

Beyond drawing attention to the mere existence of the spiritual di-mension, the coincidences suggest the importance of the process of devel-oping toward fuller realization of spirit. This is especially the case in the


apparent development of Plaskett’s identification first with a crater on themoon that faces out into the heavens (1) and then with a star actually sit-uated in the heavens (2), and the paralleling of this movement withDante’s journey through the heavens (11). We shall see later in this chap-ter that it is also implicit in the coincidences evoking the story of Parsifaland his quest for the Grail (4, 10).

A further aspect to the spirituality theme is the motif of bringingthe spiritual into the psychophysical world. As I have already noted, thecoincidences involving meteorites (3, 18) suggest, when interpretedsymbolically, the entry of a tangible spiritual influence into the psy-chophysical dimension. A related interpretation might be put on the in-cident involving the image of the eagle in the context of the stealing andcounterfeiting of coins (12). Here, through its association to Dante’sParadiso Cantos XVIII and XIX, the eagle suggests the notion of heav-enly justice, while the coins readily suggest the realm of materiality. Theimplication is that the heavenly order of justice ought to prevail withinthe material world—which is to say, more broadly, that the spiritualought to order the psychophysical. Again, we will see shortly that thisidea is implicit also in the pattern of meaning evoked by the Arthurianlegend coincidences (4–10).

Synchronicity

The final conceptual theme I wish to highlight from Plaskett’s material isthat of synchronicity itself. I have already mentioned a number of timeswhat I call the self-referring nature of synchronicity, that is, the fact thatthe contents of synchronistic experiences not infrequently seem to refer,explicitly or implicitly, to the phenomenon of synchronicity itself. Theydo this either through having the concept of synchronicity (or an imagesymbolizing synchronicity) as their actual content, or else through havingcontents that express one or the other of the properties intrinsic to thegeneral form of synchronistic experiences—for example, the kind of spir-itual properties described in chapter 3 (numinosity, miraculousness,transformation, and so forth). Plaskett’s material contains synchronicitiesthat are self-referring in each of these senses.

The concept of synchronicity is especially evoked by the incident thatcenters around Plaskett’s making of a symbolic association between mete-orites and coincidences (3); but it is also readily suggested by the coinci-dence involving the two parallel dreams of synchronized swimming (23). Ineach of these cases, it is as though synchronicity is pointing toward itselfand revealing certain aspects of its nature: its spiritual origin and the kindof proof to which it is susceptible (3), and the fact of its present uninte-grated, submerged, largely unconscious status (23).


Regarding the self-referring nature of Plaskett’s coincidences in thesecond of the senses mentioned, this can be explicated here specificallywith reference to the preceding three conceptual themes of identity, trans-formation, and spirituality. Doing so will also illustrate how deeply thefour themes I have been considering mutually implicate one another.

The factor of identity plays a crucial role in many if not most coin-cidences. For it is usually because there is at least one point of identity ornear-identity between events that they are considered to form a coinci-dence at all.29 Furthermore, inasmuch as many coincidences involve asone of their events an intimate psychic process of the experiencer that isthen found to parallel a physical event seemingly very far removed fromthe area of influence of the experiencer’s subjectivity, this can be consid-ered to be establishing an unexpected form of identification between theexperiencer and the world. When the identification is with not just a sin-gle isolated content but with several contents that together seem to evokea dynamic pattern of meaning—perhaps with overtones of ritual, myth,or legend—then forms of spontaneous symbolic enactment may even takeplace. Thus, Plaskett’s experiences can be understood to have led him toenact certain aspects of the legend of Parsifal (4, 5, 10) and of the sym-bolic journey of Dante (11–14). In the light of the Thornton case exam-ined in chapter 4, it would seem possible that this potentiality for stagingspontaneous enactments may be intrinsic to the very nature of syn-chronicity. In Plaskett’s material it is specifically evoked by those coinci-dences whose content involves actors (4, 5, 9), and even more clearly bythe incident whose content is Assagioli’s psychosynthesis exercise with itstechnique of identifying with symbolic episodes from Arthurian legendand Dante’s Divine Comedy (29).

The relationship to synchronicity of the concept of transformationwas examined at length in chapter 3. That the contents of Plaskett’s ex-periences so richly evoke this concept is thus another instance of syn-chronicity seeming to explicate an aspect of its own nature. In particular,we can note the incident involving the meteorites falling on the Frenchtown of L’Aigle (18). If we equate meteorites with coincidences and theeagle (l’aigle) with the transformative influence of heavenly justice, thenthe falling of the former on the latter suggests that a close connection mayexist between these two ideas: in some sense, synchronicity may be anagent or vehicle for the transformative influence of heavenly justice.

Again, those of Plaskett’s coincidences whose contents suggest thepossibility of a new kind of perception (31–41) highlight another kind oftransformation that is intrinsic to the very nature of synchronicity. Inas-much as it directs our attention toward a kind of relationship between


events that is usually unnoticed (namely, meaningful acausal paralleling),synchronicity encourages and requires us to look in a new way. In rela-tion to one coincidence, Plaskett recalls thinking that the phenomenonmay actually require us to develop a new science (38). More specifically,Jung presents the synchronistic relationship between events as comple-mentary to the kinds of causal relationship of which we are normallyaware. This balancing of one way of looking with a second complemen-tary way may in part be what is suggested by the repeated emphasis inPlaskett’s coincidences on the motif of one-eyedness (32, 36, 37, 39–41).Sometimes the implication of these one-eye incidents seems negative:being one-eyed means being partially sighted, limited, incomplete (36, 37,40, 41). At other times, however, the tone is more positive: the “singleeye” is the “third eye” of spiritual insight (32) or an unexpectedly ap-pearing precious jewel (39). In these latter cases, the “single eye” may sig-nify not one eye of two but rather a new kind of integrated or holisticperception. If so, it again reflects one of the intrinsic features of syn-chronicity, namely, its ability to effect temporary shifts from our usualmode of perception, based primarily on observer and observed separa-tion, into a more holistic or centerless mode of perception, which involvesadditionally awareness of observer–observed unity.30 The existence ofboth negative and positive connotations to the motif of one-eyedness mayreflect the point suggested earlier, that it may be necessary to passthrough a temporary impairment of one’s normal perception in order toarrive at a new and higher form of perception.31 Likewise, synchronicity,though it may be an important additional or new way of looking, can alltoo easily seem delusory nonsense to the unsympathetic.

Finally—and here the self-reference is at its most conspicuous—thecontents of Plaskett’s coincidences repeatedly and explicitly emphasizethe concept of spirit, thereby reflecting the fundamentally spiritual na-ture of synchronicity as I have been elaborating on it throughout thiswork. In particular, that intelligible patterns of meaning, such as I havebeen presenting, can be plausibly extracted from the content of the co-incidences suggests that synchronicity may be understood as a form ofrevelation. Further, considering that the specific “message” of the reve-lation concerns in large part the nature and status of synchronicity itself,the phenomenon should perhaps, at least on the basis of Plaskett’s mate-rial, be viewed as self-revelatory. What it is revealing about itself in-cludes many things but, as we are now seeing, important among them isits own spiritual nature. In other words, through Plaskett’s material, oneof the principal things we are enabled to witness is the self-revelation ofsynchronicity as spirit.


A MODERN GRAIL STORY

By way of illustrating more fully the kind of amplification and analysis onwhich the preceding interpretation has been based, I shall now present ingreater detail the most salient features of the analysis I made specificallyof the six coincidences grouped in the previous chapter under the the-matic heading of “Arthurian Legend.” Above all, this should illustratehow, through hypothesizing that there may be embedded or implicit lev-els of meaning within seemingly unpromising coincidence contents andthen making the effort to uncover these meanings, it can happen that in-teresting and often quite remarkable patterns of meaning do emerge.Plaskett recognized this possibility and pursued it to a certain extent;what I have done is extend it more systematically.

Plaskett’s coincidences highlight three central images from Arthu-rian legend: the knight Parsifal, the Round Table, and the Holy Grail.These images evoke various sections of the overall legend, each of whichcan be seen to have pertinent implications for the themes this work hasbeen developing.

Parsifal

The first of the Arthurian legend coincidences (4) has as its principal con-tent a striking physical resemblance between Plaskett and the singer play-ing the part of Parsifal in Wagner’s opera. Previously Plaskett’s identitywas emphasized in terms of his surname (1, 2) and date of birth (1); hereit is emphasized through his actual physical appearance. There may be asuggestion in this that the level of identification is here becoming moreconcrete, more physically embodied. Further, whereas before the identifi-cation was with images of the relatively static phenomena of a lunarcrater and a distant star, here it is with the much more dynamic image ofan actor or singer. A similar suggestion stems from incidents (5) and (9),in which the contents are the names of the actors Lance Perceval in theone instance and (Mel) Ferrer and (Stanley) Baker in the other. The em-phasis on acting suggests a more intimate participatory relationship tothe events, even that the experiencer may himself be involved in somekind of dramatic enactment.

Specifically, through the singer, Plaskett finds himself identifiedwith the figure of Parsifal. Within most versions of Arthurian legend Par-sifal is the knight who quests after and eventually discovers the HolyGrail. According to the legend, a certain king known as the Fisher King issuffering from a wound that will not heal until a knight of conspicuousexcellence discovers his castle and, seeing the Grail there, immediatelyasks certain questions concerning it. So long as the king remains sick, the


whole land suffers. But when the knight arrives and asks about the Grail,both the king and the land will be healed. Parsifal is the knight predes-tined to undertake and accomplish this task.

In the legend, Parsifal arrives at the Grail Castle twice. The firsttime he comes upon it with remarkable ease but without appreciating itssignificance. He views a number of marvelous things relating to the Grailand even the Grail itself, but, inhibited by the sense of decorum that hehas been instructed to maintain, he omits to ask anything about them.The following morning all the marvels have disappeared, and he is in-formed subsequently that his omission to ask the relevant questionsmeans that the curse on the king and the land remains in effect. His per-sonal failure is thus the cause of continuing widespread suffering. Realiz-ing this, he determines to find the Grail Castle again at any cost. Aftermany years of seeking he eventually does so, this time he asks the all-important questions, and simultaneously the ailing Fisher King and thewhole land recover from their plight.32

When Parsifal first sees the Grail he remains a passive observer, notappreciating his own crucial role in the events he is witnessing. However,by the time he sees it the second time, learning the significance of theGrail has become of burning personal relevance; indeed, it is the centralgoal of his life. There is a parallel to this in Plaskett’s change of attitudetoward coincidences. Before the extraordinary concentration of coinci-dences that occurred to him at the beginning of 1988, he had alreadynoted a fair number of such events and had even been sufficiently inter-ested to begin carefully recording them.33 However, when the main clus-ters got under way, he became so fascinated that he began much moreactively to consider their possible meaning and to pursue research associ-ations.34 Like Parsifal, he became engaged in a sort of quest. And it soonbecame clear that this active involvement was itself in some way leadingto the occurrence of further incidents (the “triggering” effect to whichPlaskett refers several times). In other words, Plaskett’s participation inthe coincidences—characterized primarily by his more inquiring atti-tude—appeared to result in more meaning manifesting in his environ-ment (in the form of more meaningful coincidences). Thus, as in Parsifal’scase, the asking of the right questions—questions ultimately concerningmeaning—leads to a significant reanimation of the environment.

The Round Table

The first result of this more inquiring attitude appeared to be the trigger-ing of the series of further coincidences involving Arthurian legend(6–10). The principal contents of the first four of these (6–9) evoke, di-rectly or indirectly, the image of the Round Table. In one case (6), the


content actually is round table; in another (8), it is Knights of the RoundTable. In the other two cases, the contents are Camelot (7), the supposedlocation of the Round Table and of King Arthur’s court; and Ferrer andBaker (9), the names of the two actors playing the film roles of KingArthur and his nephew Mordred, the conflict between whom resulted inthe destruction of the fellowship of the Round Table.

The image of the Round Table evokes in several ways the problemof the integration of the spiritual aspect of reality with its more mundaneaspect. According to the Queste del Saint Graal, the Round Table wasthe third of “three most important tables in the world.”35 The first tablewas that at which Christ and his Apostles ate the Last Supper. The sec-ond, “in the likeness and in remembrance of it,”36 was the table of theHoly Grail, that is, the table in the Grail Castle upon which the Grail wasplaced or around which the Fisher King and his company sat eating foodmiraculously bestowed by the Grail.37 Being the third, the Round Tableis at a further remove again from the medieval author’s conception ofhighest spirituality (Christ); used by King Arthur and his knights, it isvery much in the material world. This gradation from more spiritual tomore material contexts reflects what Emma Jung and Marie-Louise vonFranz, following C. G. Jung, consider to have been one of the major im-petuses behind the emergence of medieval alchemy, the legend of theGrail, and certain Holy Ghost movements such as that of Joachim ofFloris: the psychic need to compensate the one-sidedness of Christianitythrough reconciling the conflicting opposites of spirit and matter; morespecifically, through addressing “certain still unresolved problems, suchas those of sexuality, the shadow and the unconscious in general.”38 (Aswe saw above, especially the latter two of these are among the ideasseemingly evoked by several of Plaskett’s coincidences involving thetheme of sea monsters.)

An important feature of the Round Table in the legend is that allthe seats around it were occupied except one, the so-called siègepérilleux. This “perilous seat” was supposed to represent the “emptyplace vacated by Judas when Christ said he would be betrayed.”39 Itcould only be occupied by “the predestined and most virtuous man whoshould one day find the Grail.”40 This is, of course, Parsifal. However,Jung and von Franz point out that “it is a remarkable fact that the dis-coverer of the Grail—who in his attribute of the redeemer is to some ex-tent a reappearance of Christ or . . . represents an incarnation of theHoly Spirit—should have to occupy just precisely Judas’s seat.”41 Thereason for this, they suggest, is that “Perceval has been chosen to reunitethe too widely sundered opposites of good and evil with the help of theHoly Spirit and the Grail.”42


In the legend, contrary to what we are led to expect, Parsifal doesnot occupy the siège périlleux after discovering the Grail. Instead, he re-mains in the Grail Castle, renouncing chivalry to become a holy man; insome versions he even withdraws into the wilderness as an anchorite.Jung and von Franz see this as a failure on Parsifal’s part and more gen-erally as representing a failure on the part of medieval consciousness:

Perceval should not have taken himself into the seclusion ofthe Grail Castle; in order to remain in the picture he shouldhave brought the Grail to the Round Table, so that instead ofthe Spirit being divorced from the world the world wouldhave been impregnated with the Spirit.43

As a result of this failure, the principal goal of the fellowship of theRound Table became worldly rather than spiritual. King Arthur and hisknights left Britain on an expedition against Rome. During their absence,the regent, Arthur’s nephew Mordred, seized power for himself. Arthurand his company returned as soon as they learned of this, but in the en-suing battles, all of the Knights of the Round Table, including KingArthur, met their death. Thus, Parsifal’s failure to bring the spiritual andthe worldly together resulted indirectly in the destruction of such worldlyorder as there was.

A number of features of the contexts of Plaskett’s round table coin-cidences reflect this aspect of the legend. The phrase “round table” that heheard on the radio (6) referred to a meeting of international politicians.More specifically, as Plaskett further informs us, the politicians were dueto discuss what policy they should adopt in regard to certain countries incrisis economically.44 The implicit idea here of assessing or evaluatingseems to be one of the motifs of the coincidence generally: the round tablethat Plaskett saw on the television program was being evaluated as an an-tique; and he himself was evaluating (as he says, “pondering intently”) thepossible coincidental status of seeing the round table when he did. All ofthis suggests the situation in regard to the Arthurian Round Table: at theconclusion of the Grail quest, the possible future value of the Round Tablefellowship had to be assessed, and the fatal decision was made to direct itsenergies into specifically political activities (the expedition against Rome).The consequences of this decision are suggested by the next coincidence,when Plaskett learns that the composer of the musical Camelot has died(7). A composer is someone who, in this case working in sound, createsorder and meaning. The death of the composer of Camelot suggests, then,the death of the one who ordered the Round Table fellowship located at Camelot, the death, that is, of King Arthur. More explicitly, the film


Knights of the Round Table (8) focused primarily on the treachery ofMordred and the destruction to which that led, including Arthur’s death.Similarly, the coincidence involving the names Ferrer and Baker (9) al-luded by association to the characters played by the actors Mel Ferrer andStanley Baker, namely, King Arthur and Mordred, respectively—the twocontestants in the fatal struggle for worldly power.

The Holy Grail

Besides this highlighting of the political dimension of Arthurian legend,there was emphasis on its spiritual dimension, as symbolized by the HolyGrail. Specifically, this comes into focus with Plaskett’s discovery thatone possible derivation of the word “Grail” was from the Latin (in factoriginally Greek) word “crater” (10). Already I have noted how Plas-kett’s coincidences have brought about a spontaneous identification ofhim with the crater on the far side of the moon (1) and with Parsifal, thepreeminent knight of the Grail legend (4). Each of these identificationscan only have been reinforced by the unexpected equation of the two images, crater and Grail.

As we have seen, in most versions of the legend the Grail is consid-ered to be a kind of vessel—the very one in which Joseph of Arimatheacaught the blood dripping from the wounds of the crucified Christ. Wol-fram von Eschenbach disagrees with this account and—almost certainlyunder the influence of alchemical thinking—portrays the Grail as astone. But whether as a vessel or as a stone, all accounts agree in at-tributing to the Grail miraculous life-giving and life-sustaining powers ofa spiritual nature.45

It is clear, then, that the Grail in itself is a resonant symbol of spiri-tual mystery and power, and, hence, also of the goal of spiritual striving.Indeed, for Parsifal the most important objective in his life becomes tofind and ask about the Grail. Thus, it is not unlikely that when this sym-bol synchronistically emerges in Plaskett’s life, it is also (at least in part)as a symbol of the spiritual goal toward which he is striving. Specifically,the goal that Plaskett saw himself as seeking was union of his normal selfwith his higher self or soul.46 Interestingly, Jung and von Franz concludetheir chapter on “The Grail as Vessel” with the suggestion that “in a spe-cial sense . . . the soul is that wondrous vessel which is the goal of thequest and in which the life-giving power inheres.”47

Another object of Plaskett’s quest was for some way of “provingthe reality of the spiritual dimension of the universe.”48 This too is sym-bolized by the Grail. If Christ represents spiritual reality, then insofar as


Christ ascended to heaven with his body he left no traces ofhis physical life on earth apart from this very blood which re-mained on the lance [that had pierced his side] and in theGrail vessel. It is therefore the only permanent evidence of hisearthly life and of the “substance of his soul.”49

This problem of evidence and proof was for Plaskett initially foundto center primarily on the coincidentally highlighted image of meteorites(3). Later, he had the realization “that really big meteorites not only pro-duce samples of extra-terrestrial rock (the stuff that changed the scien-tists’ minds [concerning the reality of there being such things asmeteorites]); they also produce CRATERS! A crater is even clearer evi-dence!”50 This suggests another line of connection. The image of thecrater was found to be associated with the Grail. Now it turns out also tobe associated with the image of meteorites. Finally, completing the circleof associations, Jung and von Franz relate information that enables theimage of meteorites also to be associated directly with the Grail. In Wol-fram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, the Grail is, as has been said, not a ves-sel but a stone. Of this stone it is said:

They [the Knights of the Grail] live froma stoneof purest kind.If you do not know it,it shall here be named to you.It is called lapsit exillis.51

There is dispute as to what lapsit exillis means.52 Some take it to be a cor-ruption of either lapis elixir or lapis exilis, both of which expressions arefound in alchemy to refer to the philosopher’s stone. This is plausible,since there seems little doubt that Wolfram was strongly influenced by al-chemical thought.53 But there is also another intriguing possibility men-tioned by Jung and von Franz: “Because of the reading, lapsit ex coelis,there was a wish [among some commentators] to interpret the Grail as ameteorite, for in antiquity meteorites were considered to be líqo� eÒmyu-co�—stones with a soul.”54 This interpretation receives some supportfrom the story, as Joseph Campbell relates, that

[a]ccording to Wolfram’s perhaps invented reference, theProvençal author Kyot discovered the legend of the Grail inToledo, in the forgotten work of a heathen astrologer, Flegitanis


by name, “who had with his own eyes seen hidden wonders inthe stars. He tells of a thing,” states Wolfram, “called the Grail,whose name he had read in the constellations. ‘A host of angelsleft it on the earth,’ Flegitanis tells, ‘then flew off, high above the stars.’”55

Again, Jung and von Franz relate another version of the story, accordingto which “the Grail was said to be a precious stone that fell out of Lu-cifer’s crown when he was expelled from heaven. There the idea of thelapsit ex coelis, of its having fallen from heaven, is likewise expressed.”56

The coincidences involving the images or ideas of the crater, mete-orites, the Grail, and coincidence itself, together with the associationsarising from them, have established the following connections:

a. the Grail is associated with a crater (10);b. meteorites are associated with the phenomenon of coincidence

(3);c. meteorites are associated with craters (Plaskett’s association,

based on meteorological fact);d. meteorites are associated with the Grail (in Wolfram von Eschen-

bach’s Parzival and elsewhere; also by combining [a] and [c]);e. the crater is associated with the phenomenon of coincidence

(by combining [b] and [c])f. the Grail is associated with the phenomenon of coincidence

(by combining either [a] and [e] or [b] and [d]).

This tight nexus of associations is all the more striking in view of the factthat each of the images or ideas—crater, meteorites, Grail, coincidence—was already central to at least one incident impressive and suggestive in itself.

Plaskett’s coincidences, then, have thrown into prominence theimage of the Grail both as a vessel (crater) and as a stone (meteorite). Thetwo versions are not strictly incompatible: the vessel could conceivablyhave been cut out of meteoric stone, perhaps even out of the jewel fromLucifer’s crown. However, there may be a specific reason why both ver-sions are evoked by Plaskett’s material. In the case of a crater that hasbeen produced by the impact of a meteorite, the meteorite would, at leastinitially, be contained in the crater. In a sense, then, the meteorite can beviewed as the content and the crater as the container. The fact that bothimages are equated here with the same thing, the Grail, suggests the para-dox that “the container is the content.” This in turn reflects the feature


that we have several times observed about synchronicity: its self-referringnature whereby the meaning seemingly derivable from the content of asynchronicity is often basically the same as that which is derivable fromconsideration of the general form of any and every synchronicity. Thus,form and content express the same meaning, so that, in a sense, form andcontent are one.

In the light of all these connections, the speculation suggests itselfthat synchronicity, as it is revealing itself through Plaskett’s coincidences,may itself be a form of the Grail. The Grail is something spiritual and be-stowing of meaning. So, I have argued, is synchronicity. The Grail,though essentially spiritual, can manifest in the psychophysical world ofnormal experience, but elusively and evanescently. This, as we have seen,is just how synchronicity manifests. The Grail appears to Parsifal at firstspontaneously and without requiring any special effort on his part, butbefore he can access its spiritualizing and regenerative power, he has toadopt an actively inquiring attitude in regard to it. The situation is simi-lar with synchronicities, which appear spontaneously but require that theexperiencer actively reflect on and inquire into them if they are to disclosethe fuller dimensions of their meaningfulness. One of the reasons theGrail is such a sacred object is that, as Jung and von Franz noted, it is“the only permanent evidence of [Christ’s] earthly life and of the ‘sub-stance of his soul,’” that is to say, the Grail constitutes physical proof ofthe spiritual reality represented by Christ.57 Likewise, synchronicity canbe experienced, as it was by Plaskett, as constituting a form of tangibleproof both of the paranormal generally and, more specifically, of “the re-ality of the spiritual dimension of the universe.”58 Again, I just noted thatthe Grail, as both crater and meteorite, can be understood as both con-tainer and content, both outer vessel and inner substance. Synchronicitysimilarly has both its outer vessel-like aspect (its unvarying general form)and its inner substance of images and ideas (its variable specific content).Alternatively, one might consider the normal psychophysical events com-posing the synchronicity as the container and the anomalous and spiritu-ally significant relationship between the events as the content. Finally, thesymbolizing of the Grail as both meteorite and crater suggests that it isin some sense simultaneously both cause and effect and, hence, cause ofitself (causa sui). Synchronicities by definition are not caused by any fac-tor apart from themselves, and therefore can be viewed as uncaused oracausal phenomena; hence, as causes of themselves.

Within the context of Plaskett’s experiences as a whole, the sym-bolism relating to Arthurian legend reiterates and develops motifs thathave already been introduced by the celestial phenomena coincidences


(1–3) and that will be further developed by coincidences involving theother themes of Dante’s Paradiso, sea monsters, and eyes and vision(11–41). In particular, the issue of identity and participation has beenemphasized through the figure of Parsifal; the importance of the spiritualaspect of reality and of integrating it with the physical is expressedthrough the relationship between Parsifal as Grail seeker and the RoundTable; and as we just saw, the relevance of the phenomenon of syn-chronicity itself to these issues is here suggested particularly strongly by acluster of interconnections that may even lead to the thought that, in asense, synchronicity is a form of the Grail.


CHAPTER 7

SYNCHRONICITY AND SPIRITIN THE I CHING

Many of us who have used [the I Ching] seriously over a number ofyears have been struck by its enigma. Although I have been familiarwith it since my cradle days as an analytical psychologist I still feelequally disturbed and impressed by its efficacy. I am disturbed be-cause it seems so utterly improbable that a book, several thousandyears old and grown in such different cultural soil, should still proveso meaningful to us. If it is a genuine oracle, as I personally from myexperiences have to accept, it cuts right across our Western scientificcausalistic world-picture. It reveals an interdependence of subjectand object, it stands against the accepted Western dogma of the divi-sion between the two, dictated by a limited ego-consciousness, andit reveals a profound correspondence between within and without.All this makes me wish that the riddle of the I Ching should be takenmore seriously by us and systematically researched.

I have mentioned the I Ching because I think that here we havethe symbol of a possible development of man’s consciousness in theor a next phase of history.

Gerhard Adler, “C. G. Jung in a Changing Civilisation”

The preceding chapters have been concerned primarily with spontaneoussynchronistic experiences. I have emphasized that they are spontaneous inorder to distinguish them from another category of synchronistic experi-ences, namely, those that have been more consciously generated throughinvolvement in one or another kind of divinatory procedure. What I wishto do in this chapter is to look in detail at one such divinatory procedure:the ancient Chinese Oracle of Change, the I Ching.

Though ancient, the I Ching is still very much alive today, with anespecially thriving interest in Europe and America, where in fact it was

141

only properly introduced during the twentieth century. It is relevant tothe present study in several ways. First and foremost, the system of the IChing has been explicitly claimed by Jung, and others following him, tobe based primarily on the principle of synchronicity. Indeed, some ofJung’s earliest public statements of his synchronicity principle were madespecifically with reference to the I Ching.1 If this claim is justified, itmeans that, in spite of the highly diverse and radically unpredictable na-ture of synchronicity, the phenomenon can nevertheless be systematizedand put to orderly use. The possible implications of this are powerfullyexpressed by the quotation from Gerhard Adler at the head of this chap-ter. Jung earlier voiced similar sentiments in his memorial address forRichard Wilhelm:

Anyone who, like myself, has had the rare good fortune to ex-perience in association with Wilhelm the divinatory power ofthe I Ching cannot remain ignorant of the fact that we havehere an Archimedean point from which our Western attitudeof mind could be lifted off its foundations.2

We shall see, indeed, that the Chinese world, in which the I Ching arose inancient times and for two and a half millennia continued to flourish, wasimbued with an intricately worked out understanding of reality that bearsimportant resemblance to the viewpoint of synchronicity. Of particularrelevance to the present study is that in the Chinese world the I Chingwould most often be understood against the backdrop of a worldview inwhich the spiritual aspect of reality was accorded an importance at leastequal to that accorded to the physical and psychic aspects.3 In otherwords, the principle of synchronicity underlying the functioning of the or-acle was understood, as I also wish to understand it, in a spiritual light.Further, if in the I Ching we do indeed have a successful systematizationof synchronicity, this should enable us to enrich our overall understandingof the phenomenon by comparing the systematically obtained synchronic-ities with those that arise spontaneously. Finally, inasmuch as I will belooking at the possible relationships between synchronicity and the IChing more broadly, and in certain respects I hope also more deeply, thanhas hitherto been attempted, this chapter could also cast the odd ray offresh light on our understanding of the I Ching itself.

In what follows, then, I shall first outline some of the historicalbackground to the I Ching, from the alleged times of its composition inancient China down to scholarly and psychological work being done onit in the contemporary West. I shall then briefly explain the various stagesof the procedure for consulting the I Ching as an oracle, as this is still


done by many people today. Next, I shall bring out in some detail thesenses in which synchronicity can be understood to be involved in theworking of the I Ching. In the light of this, I shall then examine the simi-larities and differences between oracular synchronicities and spontaneoussynchronicities. At appropriate points within these discussions I shall usethe oracle as a focus for exploring a number of key problems and issuesintrinsic to synchronicity generally—problems such as: What constitutesor delimits the “moment” within which synchronistic patterning takesplace? In what sense does the experiencer participate in the synchronisticmoment? How do the various levels of concrete situation of a syn-chronicity relate to the abstract archetypal patterns that may underliethem? The chapter will conclude with a discussion of some of the ways inwhich the I Ching can be, and indeed has been, related to a spiritual dimension or aspect of reality.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The I Ching as we find it is a collection of sixty-four, six-line figures(“kua” or “hexagrams”: all possible combinations of whole and dividedlines; see figure 7.1),4 each figure having a name and being related to var-ious textual matter. Some of this verbal material—the Judgment, Image,Lines, Commentary on the Decision, and so on—applies severally to thevarious hexagrams; other sections, namely, the Discussion of the Tri-grams and the Great Treatise, are of a more general nature.5

According to ancient tradition,6 the basic hexagrams themselves werediscovered by the legendary culture hero Fu Hsi (third millenium B.C.E.),with the present arrangement and the Judgement texts being composedaround 1150 B.C.E. by King Wên, father of the founder of the Chou dynasty(circa 1150–249 B.C.E.), during a period of political imprisonment. KingWên’s son, the Duke of Chou, is supposed to have added the explanationsof the individual lines (the Line texts). The remaining textual material,known collectively as the Ten Wings, is alleged to be the work of Con-fucius (circa 550 B.C.E.) or of his immediate disciples relating the master’sexpressed thoughts.

There are indications that hexagram figures may have existed andbeen used for oracular purposes as early as the second or even third mil-lennium B.C.E. (though seemingly not in their present arrangement).7

FIGURE 7.1. Whole and divided lines.

Synchronicity and Spirit in the I Ching 143

However, modern scholarship demonstrates fairly convincingly that it ismost unlikely that King Wên or the Duke of Chou, and certainly not FuHsi (if indeed such a person ever existed historically), had anything to dowith the book’s composition into its present form.8 A more plausible ac-count was proposed by the Russian scholar Iulian K. Shchutskii in theearly 1930s: “the basic text of the Book of Changes,” he suggested aftera consideration of the then available evidence, “is originally a divinatoryand subsequently a philosophical text which took shape from the materi-als of agricultural folklore in the Chin or Ch’in territories between theeighth and seventh centuries B.C.”9 Shschutskii also argued persuasivelyagainst Confucian authorship of the Ten Wings. Though some of this ma-terial was undoubtedly influenced by the Confucian school of thought,almost all of it actually dates (in Shchutskii’s estimation) from well afterConfucius’s time and some of it definitely does not show his influence toany significant extent.10 These chronological judgements of Shchutskii’shave met with fairly wide (though certainly not universal) agreementamong scholars in the sixty or so years since they were written.11

The I Ching enters more fully into history around 300 B.C.E. in thelate Chou, Ch’in, and Early Han Dynasties, when it became establishedas one of the five Confucian Classics. From then until the end of theCh’ing Dynasty (1644–1911), and even beyond, the work has continuedto be a major influence on Chinese thinkers of many different orienta-tions (especially Confucian and Taoist). Throughout this long historythere have been numerous different schools of I Ching interpretation, butamong these two principal orientations (in various forms) have predomi-nated, often in explicit opposition to each other: the i-li or “meaning andprinciple” (or “moral principle”) school, and the hsiang-shu or “imageand number” school. As Joseph Adler explains:

I-li commentaries are based on the textual elements of the I,i.e. the hexagram names and the texts. They represent at-tempts to derive moral guidance from the texts themselves,often apart from their oracular function. The hsiang-shumethod of interpretation, on the other hand, is concernedwith the hexagrams and trigrams, their genetic and transfor-mational relations, their numerological values, and their sym-bolic correlations with a variety of cosmological categories.12

Both approaches are already present in the earliest commentaries (the TenWings): the i-li in the Commentary on the Decision, for example, and thehsiang-shu in the Image texts.13 Subsequently the fates of the two schoolsseemed to oscillate somewhat. The hsiang-shu school had its first flower-


ing among the Han scholar-magicians of circa 200 B.C.E. to circa 200 C.E.for whom the book provided the basis for increasingly esoteric numero-logical and symbolic speculations.14 Then, in conscious opposition to this,Wang Pi (226–49) instigated a powerful and enduring version of the i-li approach, emphasizing the moral-philosophical component of thebook above its divinatory aspect.15 In fact, this interpretation receivedsanction as the official orthodoxy during the T’ang Dynasty (618–906). Itwas not until the time of the Northern Sung Dynasty (960–1127) that thehsiang-shu school was able to reassert itself in a major way, principally asa result of the work of Shao Yung (1001-77). His innovations includedvarious numerological techniques for consulting the oracle without the useof yarrow stalks or coins,16 and also “a history of the cosmos—past andfuture—derived a priori from the I-ching’s [sic] basic principle of yin-yangchange.”17 His best-known contribution, however, is his presentation ofthe hexagram figures in linear, circular, and square arrangements in whichthe individual hexagrams stand in more logical relation to one anotherthan they do in the traditional King Wên sequence (the sequence found inthe texts as we now know them).18

Roughly parallel with this resurgence of the hsiang-shu approach,the i-li school was also gaining fresh impetus through the commentariesof Hu Yüan (993–1059) and his student Ch’eng I (1033–1107), who wasto become the chief patriarch of the Neo-Confucian movement. It wasleft for the great Neo-Confucian synthesizer Chu Hsi (1130–1200), who“found merit in both approaches, but . . . considered neither one ade-quate in itself,”19 to attempt to resolve the tension between them. He didthis by, on the one hand, reasserting the importance of the divinatory as-pect of the I Ching, while, on the other hand, arguing that the primaryimportance of this was to enable the candidate for sagehood, the chün-tzu (in Wilhelm–Baynes the “superior man”), to know in what specifictime and context a particular moral-philosophical principle should be ap-plied. For Chu Hsi the essential situation and the moral action it requiredwere present in highly abstract form in the hexagram figure itself; thetexts accompanying the hexagram were seen as verbal amplifications orconcretizations of this basic meaning, and were in this sense secondary.20

Chu Hsi’s work on the I Ching had an immense influence on large num-bers of subsequent commentators, but even so he was far from having es-tablished anything like a standard view.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries alone nearly twenty dif-ferent schools of interpretation can be identified.21 From among this con-tinuing diversity one final Chinese thinker we can single out here is WangFu-chih (1619–92), whom the sinologist Gerald Swanson has called “prob-ably the most powerful writer on the I Ching in the entire Ch’ing period.”22


Of primarily hsiang-shu orientation, he is relevant to the present studyinasmuch as his theory of the numerical basis of the I Ching attracted theattention of some Jungian writers on synchronicity such as Marie-Louisevon Franz.23

The first major event in the Western study of the I Ching was its im-pingement on the German philosopher Leibniz. Between 1697 and 1702he was in correspondence with a Jesuit missionary in China, Fr. JoachimBouvet. When in 1701 Leibniz sent Bouvet a table of numerals in the bi-nary system that he (Leibniz) had worked out some twenty years previ-ously, Bouvet responded by sending Leibniz two complete diagrams ofthe sixty-four I Ching hexagrams in the methodical arrangement workedout by Shao Yung. Counting a divided line as zero and a whole line asone, Shao Yung’s sequence mirrored exactly the series of Leibniz’s binarynumbers from 63 to 0. Since Leibniz had worked out his system of binaryarithmetic largely in an attempt “to validate spiritual truths in mathe-matical terms, thus making them, as he thought, irrefutable,”24 the dis-covery of a parallel series of figures forming the foundation of a Chinesespiritual and philosophical system excited him tremendously. As JosephNeedham notes, “He continued to descant on his joint discovery withBouvet for the rest of his life.”25 In fact, there is no indication that theChinese ever conceived of the I Ching hexagrams as binary numbers orperformed with them any arithmetical operations. However, there is nodoubt that Leibniz’s enthusiasm, even if based on a misunderstanding,stimulated him to develop and promote his own system further. This issignificant in view of the enormously important role that binary arith-metic has come to occupy in the world of modern computers as well as inunderstanding neurophysiological and other phenomena.

Probably the most important step in the entry of the I Ching intothe West was the publication in 1924 of a German translation by RichardWilhelm, then in 1950 of a rendering of his German into English by CaryF. Baynes. A fairly accurate English translation by James Legge alreadyexisted (it was completed in 1855 but not published until 1882),26 but byhis own admission Legge understood little of the book’s significance andcould therefore do only so much to make it intelligible to the Westernreader. Wilhelm’s great achievement was not only to have translated thebook (with considerable elegance) but also to have communicated,through his own extensive commentaries, its living spirit and applicationas a source of practical and psychological wisdom.

Jung was an enthusiastic user of the I Ching since around 1920—employing initially the Legge translation.27 When in the early 1920s hemet Wilhelm—then engaged in producing his translation—the result wasa mutually enriching friendship, with Jung deepening his understanding


of the I Ching and Wilhelm his understanding of psychology. For the re-mainder of his life, Jung was an unequivocal champion of the I Ching.The foreword he contributed to Baynes’s English rendering of Wilhelm’stranslation and commentary has helped make the work almost a stapletool of analytical psychologists and, even more significantly, has precipi-tated it fully into the public domain where it has retained an extraordi-nary popularity ever since.28

In addition to this interest in the I Ching as a practical psychologi-cal tool and popular means of divination, the twentieth century saw agrowth of scholarly interest in the work. One result of this has been to re-move the tradition of four-sage authorship to the realm of legend whereit belongs, and establish the work’s undoubted multiple authorship onsounder philological and textual grounds. Other results have been to re-store, with the help of new archaeological, historical, and textual evi-dence and techniques, the meaning of a number of passages that wereimpenetrable even to the earliest commentators, and in other cases to puta serious question mark over the traditional, millennia-old understandingof the meanings of certain hexagram titles themselves.29

An interesting fusion of detailed scholarship with depth psychologicalinsight informed the Eranos I Ching Project (1988–94). Benefiting bothfrom recent sinological research and the accumulated insights into the I Ching that have been gained through intimate involvement with it by Jun-gian and post-Jungian psychology over the last forty or so years, the projectdirectors, Rudolf Ritsema and Stephen Karcher, produced a new and highlydistinctive translation that, while paying particularly close attention to thenature of the oracle’s language, nonetheless aims “to go behind historical,philological and philosophical analysis to revive the divinatory core, the psy-chological root of the book as a living practise.”30

THE ORACULAR USE OF THE I CHING

As we have seen, at different periods and as understood by differentthinkers, the I Ching has been treated sometimes primarily as an oracleand sometimes primarily as a book of wisdom. Historically speaking, it isfairly certain that its use as an oracle came first, and this is the aspectmost relevant to the present study. Briefly, the oracular use of the I Chinginvolves three stages: making an inquiry, receiving a response, and theninterpreting the response.

Typically, as with other oracular procedures, the I Ching is con-sulted when one is faced with a problem that cannot be resolved ade-quately by other means. Caught in an impasse, one seeks counsel from theoracle or from whatever power is supposed to operate through the oracle.


It is often stated, therefore, that when one consults the I Ching it shouldonly be concerning matters that really are important to one and that havealready defeated one’s best efforts to deal with them by normal means.31

Similarly, one is generally supposed to have respect for the oracle and in-tegrity within oneself.32 In this condition one frames a question, whichpreferably should be as specific and unambiguous as possible.33

Having formulated one’s question, and while holding it firmly inmind, one then casts the actual hexagram. Traditionally, there are twoprincipal methods for doing this. One, the more ancient, consists of arather complex manipulation of a bunch of fifty yarrow stalks; the other,which is simpler and seems to be by far the commonest procedure used atthe present, involves throwing a set of three coins six times.34 Each ma-nipulation of the stalks or fall of the three coins generates one of four pos-sible kinds of hexagram lines: a divided moving (that is, changing) line,called an old yin; a whole resting (that is, unchanging) line, called a youngyang; a divided resting line, called a young yin; or a whole moving line,called an old yang (see figure 7.2). The first manipulation or throw yieldsthe bottom line of the hexagram, the next yields the second line, and so onuntil the hexagram is complete. Old or moving lines are especially impor-tant and have a propensity to change into their opposites—a moving yininto a resting yang, and a moving yang into a resting yin. If one’s casthexagram contains any such moving lines, these change into their oppo-sites and a secondary or derived hexagram results, which is taken intoconsideration in addition to the primary hexagram. Each of the possibleconfigurations of six lines that might be obtained by this procedure has at-tached to it a name and various sections of textual matter. It is also con-sidered that there are certain symbolic implications in the abstract lineconfiguration itself. Both of these aspects, text and structure, can con-tribute to one’s actual interpretation of the oracular response.35

By way of illustration, consider the following experience of GerhardAdler—the kind of experience that stimulated him to make statements suchas that at the head of this chapter. This was actually his first encounter with

FIGURE 7.2. The four kinds of lines.


x

o

An old yin line

A young yang line

A young yin line

An old yang line

FIGURE 7.3. Hexagram 44, Kou/Coming to Meet.

the I Ching, and he describes himself as being initially “rather incredulous”concerning the claims made for the oracle.36 The context of his inquirywas the following “rather long-standing problem.” He was in love with agirl who was very attractive and intelligent and whose background fittedhis own; he would have considered marriage but was inhibited by the factthat she was also highly neurotic and “plagued by constant psychoso-matic symptoms.”37 His question, accordingly, was: “Shall I marry her ornot?” The I Ching responded with the configuration of lines in figure 7.3.This is Hexagram 44, Kou/Coming to Meet; there were no moving lines,so just this one hexagram was to be considered. The principal text to thehexagram, the Judgment, seemed to give Adler an explicit and unequivo-cal answer to his question: “Coming to meet. The maiden is powerful.One should not marry such a maiden.”38 Another text, the Commentaryon the Decision (constituting a later stratum of the book), explains fur-ther: “‘One should not marry such a maiden.’ This means that one can-not live with her permanently.”39 The consultation had two majoroutcomes (implicit in Adler’s account). First, his reservations concerningthe possibility of marriage to the woman in question were strengthened tothe point where he abandoned the idea. Thus, the oracle helped him be-come more conscious of his own state of doubt and on the basis of this tomake a practical decision. Second, Adler’s attitude to the I Ching was al-tered radically. It is, as he later came to appreciate, “rare to receive suchan unequivocal answer to one’s question.” That such a thing happened tohim on his first use of it was, he believed, “because it was necessary tobreak right through my rationalistic scepticism, to hit me with a hammeras it were.”40 From being skeptical and incredulous concerning the ora-cle, he became a lifelong and enthusiastic advocate of it.

Adler’s interpretation here—as much of it as he has reported—isbased solely on a couple of textual statements. Had the meaning not beenso explicit from the texts, its general tenor might still have been inferredfrom the other main interpretative resource: the hexagram structure. AsRichard Wilhelm explains, the one yin line entering at the bottom of thehexagram and encountering the five yang lines above represents “the darkprinciple, the feminine, which advances to meet the light principle, the


masculine”; it is a dangerous situation in which the “inferior” or “weak”element takes the initiative and “becomes increasingly powerful.”41 Evensuch an abstract characterization as this might well have led Adler to interpret his situation in the same way he did on the basis of the texts.

To give a fuller idea of the range of interpretative resources that areavailable to the diviner, I shall briefly summarize, first the nature and sig-nificance of the various texts involved in the oracle, and then the mostpertinent of the structural components of the hexagram figures. Finally, Ishall show how, within the tradition, these two sources of meaning, textand hexagram structure, are considered to be intimately related.

The I Ching Texts

The I Ching’s verbal material is of a variety of kinds and was undoubt-edly composed by several authors over quite a long period of time (possi-bly circa 700 B.C.E. to circa 100 C.E.).42 Some layers of this textual mattermight be considered more important than others, whether on historical,philological, or philosophical grounds. But while for certain purposes itcan be vital to be aware of these differences in status, from the point ofview of a modern-day diviner using the I Ching, it is more important tobear in mind that any aspect of this multilayered text might prove rele-vant to the inquiry made. Hellmut Wilhelm observes that

the essential thing is to keep in mind all the strata that go tomake up the book. Archaic wisdom from the dawn of time,detached and systematic reflection of the Confucian school inthe Chou era, pithy sayings from the heart of the people, sub-tle thoughts of the leading minds: all these disparate elementshave harmonized to create the structure of the book as weknow it. Its real value lies in its comprehensiveness and many-sidedness. This is the aspect under which the book lives and isrevered in China, and if we wish to miss nothing important,we must not neglect the later strata either. In these, many ofthe treasures of the very earliest origins are brought to light,treasures that up till then were hidden in the depths of thebook, their existence divined rather than recognized.43

The principal text associated with each hexagram is the Judgment(T’uan). This incorporates the hexagram names themselves (almost certainlythe earliest parts of the text); certain “mantic formulae” (as Shchutskii callsthem), including especially the terms “sublime,” “success,” “furthering,”and “perseverance”; and in most cases several lines of additional text. These


Judgment texts “refer in each case to the situation imaged by the hexagramas a whole,”44 from which “it could be ascertained whether the course ofaction indicated by the images augured good or ill.”45 This is the part of theI Ching that legend claims to have been written by King Wên during his cap-tivity at the hands of the last Shang ruler around 1150 B.C.E.

Next (or equal) in probable antiquity, and next in importance forone’s appreciation of the hexagram, are the six texts attaching to each of theindividual lines of a given hexagram. These were allegedly written by KingWên’s son, the Duke of Chou, when he too was imprisoned. Called “TheLines” (Hsiao), each of these texts is, as Shchutskii puts it, “a concrete char-acterization of some stage in the development of the given situation.”46

When consulting the oracle one generally only pays specific attention,among the line-texts, to those associated with lines that are moving.47

The Lines and Judgments are, as it were, the core I Ching text.In addition to this, however, a number of sets of other textual matter—traditionally attributed to Confucius but in fact almost all post-Confucianin origin48—came to be so intimately associated with the basic text thatthey themselves were eventually considered integral parts of the classic.Known collectively as the Ten Wings (Shih I), these texts take variousforms. Some are extended (though not very systematic) philosophical essays (the Shuo Kua, Discussion of the Trigrams, and the Ta Chuan,the Great Treatise); others are important commentaries on the structuralaspects of the hexagrams (the T’uan Chuan, Commentary on the Deci-sion, and the Ta-Hsiang Chuan, Great Image Commentary—in Wilhelm–Baynes called simply the Image); while others again are more in the natureof glosses (the Wên Yen or Commentary on the Words of the Text, theHsü Kua or Sequence of the Hexagrams, the Hsiao-Hsiang Chuan orSmall Image Commentary, and the Tsa Kua or Miscellaneous Notes). Ofthese texts, the Discussion of the Trigrams and, even more so, the GreatTreatise, are of particular importance when considering the kinds ofthinking implicit in the I Ching or how the oracle might actually have beenperceived and understood by the ancient Chinese (or at least by some an-cient Chinese). However, when actually using the I Ching for diviningpurposes, the texts that are usually most important are the Commentaryon the Decision and the Image.

In general, as Richard Wilhelm notes, the Commentary on the Decision

first explains the name of the hexagram, taking into consider-ation as occasion demands its character, its image, and itsstructure. Next it elucidates the words of King Wên [that is,the Judgment text], either using the sources just named or else


starting from the situation of the ruler of the hexagram [that is,the line or lines considered most representative of the nature ofthe hexagram as a whole] or from the change of form that hasgiven rise to the hexagram.49

The explanatory principles implied in this commentary are particularlysuggestive with regard to the question, to be explored later, of how theverbal material associated with a hexagram might be related to the abstract figure of the hexagram itself.

As for the Image commentary, this, as Richard Wilhelm again explains,

starting with the combination of the two trigrams, deducesfrom it the situation represented by the hexagram as a whole.With the attributes of the two trigrams as a basis, it then givesadvice for correct behaviour in this situation.50

In fact, though actually belonging among the Ten Wings, these Imagetexts are, as Hellmut Wilhelm notes, “not to be considered commentarieson specific passages of the older texts . . . ; they constitute a third and in-dependent approach, in addition to the judgments and the line texts, tothe situations entailed by the hexagrams.”51

As a supplement to the preceding, it should be noted that users ofvarious translations and editions of the I Ching often find special rele-vance in the various elucidatory remarks added by the translator or edi-tor. Sometimes these remarks hit the nail on the head with regard to aparticular inquiry in a way that the classical texts themselves do not. Par-ticularly rich in this respect are the commentaries of Richard Wilhelm.These are based, we are told, “on a careful reading of the later (postclas-sical) commentatory literature, on his discussions with Lao [his principalChinese teacher and collaborator] and other friends and experts, on themodern scholarly literature then available, and on his own understandingand interpretation of the passages and situations involved.”52 That state-ments deriving from these kinds of secondary (or even tertiary) sourcescan nonetheless sometimes prove relevant seems to point toward a fea-ture of the I Ching to which I will be drawing more specific attentionshortly, namely, that it consists, both in the hexagram figures themselvesand in their accompanying texts, only of paradigmatic representations ofthe situations prevailing at the time of consultation, not of exhaustive orpoint-for-point descriptions. There is thus plenty of scope for further elu-cidation of the situations, based on but going beyond what is actuallystated in the texts and classical commentaries.


A final point that needs to be mentioned in regard to the textualmatter of the I Ching is that the Chinese language used both in the earlierlayers and in the later classical commentaries exhibits features that makeit especially suited for oracular expression. The Great Treatise itself hintsat this: “The names employed sound unimportant, but the possibilities ofapplication are great. The meanings are far-reaching, the judgments arewell ordered. The words are roundabout but they hit the mark.”53 AsRitsema and Karcher observe, the I Ching avails itself of a “special orac-ular language . . . made up of symbols with no rigid subject-verb, noun-adjective, pronoun or person distinctions. They combine and interact theway dream images do.”54 Such language “allows images and concepts tojoin in single words as well as in the sentences of the I Ching.”55 Theseimage-concepts have a “wide and yet very precise” range of meaningsthat “our conceptual language cannot account for.”56 More generally,Richard Smith has commented of the use of language in the I Ching:

In the earliest strata of the basic text we can already find asensitivity to rhymes and homophony conducive to puns anddouble entendres, as well as a tendency to pair words andconcepts with opposite or complementary meanings in such away as to encourage associational or correlative thinking—along-standing and integral feature of traditional Chinesethought. . . . [T]hese linguistic tendencies are particularly welldeveloped in the Ten Wings—which together display a highlyrefined if rather diversified system of symbolic logic.57

Language that is so richly symbolic and so highly versatile and polyseman-tic lends itself to being molded to the expressive requirements of particularoracular occasions.

Hexagram Structure

As we have seen, the act of dividing the yarrow stalks or throwing thecoins results in a six-line figure, the hexagram. Even in quite generalterms, that is, before consideration is given to the character of the specificconfiguration of lines obtained by the consultation, this deceptively sim-ple six-line figure has a tremendous wealth of internal structural signifi-cance. This basic structure is, as it were, the matrix or template within orupon which the chance event (that is, the actual configuration of lines re-sulting from one’s act of consultation) is placed and in dynamic relation-ship to which it derives its meaning. The following is a summary of someof the most important of these structural features of the hexagram.58


First and foremost, there is significance in the six lines as a whole:together they depict, in highly abstract form, the overall situation or mo-ment concerning which one has made one’s inquiry. Beyond this, how-ever, each hexagram can also be considered to consist of two (orfour—see below) three-line figures, three pairs of lines, and six individuallines. In the case of each of these breakdowns, the component elementshave special characteristics and interrelationships among themselves—though ultimately they all contribute back to the overall meaning of thehexagram as a whole.

Concerning the three-line figures or trigrams, there are eight possiblekinds—every combination of whole and divided lines (see figure 7.4)—each of which has a wealth of concepts and imagery traditionally associ-ated with it.59 Within any hexagram there are two trigrams that areconsidered primary and consist of the bottom, second and third lines, andof the fourth, fifth, and top lines, respectively. There are also two furthertrigrams that are considered nuclear and consist of the second, third, andfourth lines, and of the third, fourth, and fifth lines, respectively. Impor-tantly, trigrams derive certain significance simply from their positionwithin the hexagram. Thus, for example, the lower primary trigram isconsidered to represent the inner aspect of a situation and to be lower, be-hind, earlier, and so on; while the upper primary trigram is considered torepresent the outer aspect of the situation and to be upper, in front, later,and so on. These terms can be understood as having a potential bearingwithin practically any relational context: spatial, temporal, logical, onto-logical, social, and so on.

Less frequently appealed to but nonetheless part of the ancient Chi-nese interpretative tradition is the division of the hexagram into pairs oflines. These are understood to represent the three primal powers of earthor matter (bottom and second lines), humankind or psyche (third andfourth lines), and heaven or spirit (fifth and top lines).60

Considerable abstract significance also attaches to each of the individ-ual lines and some of their interrelationships. Thus, certain line positions areconsidered to be correct or incorrect for each of the two kinds of line. Awhole or yang line, for instance, is considered to be correctly placed if it is inthe bottom, third, or fifth position but incorrectly placed if in the second,fourth, or top position; while the opposite positions are correct and incor-rect for broken or yin lines. Again, certain lines within a hexagram can havea particularly close relationship. The two principal kinds of such relation-

FIGURE 7.4. The eight trigrams.


ships are correspondence and holding together. For two lines to corre-spond they must differ in kind (that is, one must be yang and one yin) andoccupy analogous positions in the lower and upper primary trigrams.Thus, provided that they differ in kind, the first line corresponds with thefourth, the second with the fifth, and the third with the top. For two linesto hold together, they must again be different in kind but this time occupyadjacent positions.

Further, each line position was considered to characterize a differentstage in the development of the situation represented by the hexagram asa whole. The first line is outside the situation or just entering. It is some-times seen as the cause of the situation. In terms of people, it is a personwithout rank, a commoner. The second line characterizes the apogee ofthe inner aspect of the situation, since it occupies the center of the lowertrigram. It is the official in the provinces, the wife, the son, the subordinateperson in a relationship. The third line, at the top of the lower trigram butnot yet having crossed into the upper trigram, characterizes “the momentof crisis, the transition from internal to external.”61 Hence, it usually de-picts an unfavorable or difficult situation. As a person, it can representsomeone with authority in a limited context. The fourth line characterizesthe beginning of the external aspect of the situation. Though not typical ofthe situation, it is favorably influenced by its proximity to the fifth line. Asa person, it is the minister or official at the court. The fifth line character-izes the maximal exposure of the situation externally. It is the position ofthe ruler, husband, father, or the dominant person in a relationship. At thecenter of the upper trigram, it represents the full fruit of the situation andis usually favorable. The sixth line, like the first, is outside the situation,but in the sense of just leaving. It characterizes “the completion or over-development of the process of the given situation,”62 its declining influ-ence. It is the sage who has retired from active participation in the world.

Relationship of Text to Structure

We have seen, then, that there are two primary sources of meaning towhich one can refer when attempting to interpret a cast hexagram: thevarious sections of textual material and the abstract figures themselves.The question remains of what might be the relationship between thesetwo sources of meaning.

The most fruitful approach to this question may be to see the I Ching’s verbal material as an attempt (or, given the layered nature of thetext, as several cumulative attempts) to elucidate the abstract meaning ofthe hexagram figures. This approach is wholly consonant with the ancientcommentatory tradition embodied in the Great Treatise and later reach-ing a particularly refined expression in the work of the Neo-Confucian


philosopher Chu Hsi (1130–1200).63 According to the presuppositions ofthe system, one’s act of divination should access the particular hexagramthat best depicts one’s present situation. Most fundamentally, this depic-tion is in terms of abstract configurations of yin and yang forces. What theverbal material does is, as it were, “clothe” this abstract configuration inconcrete form and thereby make it more readily intelligible. Insofar as it isa reflection of the same pattern of meaning that is also active within one’sown situation, the verbal material may on occasion happen to containwords, images, and ideas that apply to one’s own situation literally. Thiswas the case with Adler’s experience cited earlier. However, because the ac-tual verbal material is just one out of numerous possible ways in which theabstract meaning of the hexagram figure might have been “clothed,” it willoften not apply so literally. Sometimes it will be fairly clear how it mightnonetheless be applied after some degree of symbolic interpretation. Butthere will remain occasions when a straightforward symbolic understand-ing of the text may still not readily relate to one’s situation. It then becomesnecessary to use the verbal material simply as an aid to comprehending theessential abstract meaning of the hexagram, after which one can then reap-ply this abstract meaning to one’s specific situation. That is, one thinksback from the abstract meaning of the hexagram figure (illuminated by theaccompanying text) to the concrete circumstances that gave rise to the inquiry—which themselves may not obviously relate to the I Ching text.

The general idea here—that the hexagram figures express a morefundamental level of meaning than do the written texts—is contained inthe following passage from the Great Treatise:

The master said: Writing cannot express words completely.Words cannot express thoughts completely.

Are we then unable to see the thoughts of the sages?The master said: The holy sages set up the images in order

to express their thoughts completely; they devized the hexa-grams in order to express the true and the false completely.Then they appended judgments and so could express theirwords completely.64

The tradition of attempting to explain the texts of hexagrams interms of their structure is also very early and had already reached a fairlevel of sophistication by the time the T’uan Chuan (Commentary on theDecision) and Hsiang Chuan (Commentary on the Images) were com-posed. Basing himself on these, as well as on the postclassical commenta-tory traditions and his own intuitions, Richard Wilhelm was able (inBook III of his translation) to explain practically all the Judgment, Image,and Lines texts in terms of hexagram structure.


The key to the whole process here is the basic duality of whole andbroken lines signifying the polarity between yang and yin, the masculineand the feminine, light and darkness, activity and passivity, the firm andthe yielding, and so forth.65 The eight possible combinations of these intostacks of three yields the trigrams. These in turn can be considered to becertain configurations of the basic polar forces (yang and yin), and fromthese configurations certain ideas and images are derived. A final stage inthe generation of text from structure is represented by the hexagram fig-ures themselves, which can be considered to be built up from a doublingof the trigrams. This doubling, as we have seen, generates a tremendouscomplexity of internal relationships among the various lines and linegroupings within the resulting hexagram.

Thus, explanations of text in terms of structure can exploit some-times the hexagram as a whole, sometimes its constituent trigrams (bothprimary and nuclear) along with their symbolic associations, and some-times the relationship of individual lines. Always in the background iswhat I earlier called the essential matrix or template common to all thehexagrams and giving special nuances to the lines according to their po-sition, correctness, and so on.

An example of how subtleties of structure can be related to textualexpressions is provided by the third line of Hexagram 43, Kuai/Break-through (Resoluteness). The whole line text reads as follows:

Nine in the third place:To be powerful in the cheekbonesBrings misfortune.The superior man is firmly resolved.He walks alone and is caught in the rain.He is bespattered,And people murmur against him.No blame.66

When one looks at the hexagram figure containing this line (see figure7.5), it seems most unlikely that the detailed imagery of this text couldbe derived from that inconspicuous third line that on the face of it seemsalmost lost and undifferentiated in the midst of the other yang

FIGURE 7.5. Hexagram 43, Kuai/Break-through (Resoluteness).


o

lines. However, by appealing to the various inner dynamics of the hexa-gram’s structure, one can account for every concept and image in the linetext. The phrase “To be powerful” is suggested by the trigram Ch’ien,which means “strong.” This is especially so in view of the fact that thethird line is not only at the top of the lower primary trigram Ch’ien butforms part of both of the two nuclear trigrams that are also Ch’ien. Theimage of “the cheekbones” is explained by Wilhelm as referring to thefact that Ch’ien can also mean “head”; the third line is at the top of thistrigram and therefore high up on the head, as are the cheekbones.67 Thephrase “Brings misfortune” stems partly from the fact that the third line,being in the place of transition from the inner to the outer trigram, isgenerally dangerous and inauspicious. However, it also partly stemsfrom an appreciation of the quality of the hexagram as a whole, accord-ing to which the attitude symbolized by the image of powerful cheek-bones, namely, “showing strength outwardly,” is not yet appropriate.68

“The superior man” refers to the diviner who is attempting,through the oracle, to harmonize his or her actions with the Tao. Such aperson’s presence is implied in all responses from the I Ching; the un-common specific reference here (outside of an Image text) may again bedue to the prominence of the trigram Ch’ien, another of whose meaningsis superiority of person.69 As for being “firmly resolved,” Wilhelm relatesthis to the fact that the line “belongs to the strong primary trigram Ch’ienand also stands in the middle of the lower nuclear trigram Ch’ien, hencethe redoubled resolution.”70 Next it is said that one “walks alone.” Ac-cording to Wilhelm, the line “is solitary because it alone is in the rela-tionship of correspondence to the dark line at the top.”71 One is “caughtin the rain” because one of the symbolic attributes of the upper primarytrigram Tui is Lake and, hence, water and cloud, and this “suggests theidea of rain bespattering the line.”72 The negative connotation of “is be-spattered” and of “people murmuring against one” derives partly fromthe difficult transitional position of the third line and partly from thedark yin line at the top with which this third line is in correspondence.The “murmuring” also relates to the trigram Tui, with its meaning ofmouth and speaking.73 Finally, the statement that there is “No blame” isexplained by Wilhelm as follows: “The strength of [the third line’s] na-ture protects it from contamination by the dark line above, hence despiteevil appearances there is no mistake.”74

Clearly, with this kind of analysis it is not a question of there beinga fixed one-to-one correspondence between aspects of hexagram struc-ture and the various units of verbalization (words, phrases, sentences).From one and the same structural element there are often derived two,three, or even more verbalized images and concepts. For example, in the


above analysis, the trigram Ch’ien is variously taken to suggest strength,head, resolution, and superiority of person; while Tui is taken to suggestboth rain and murmuring. This reflects the diversity of associations thatattach to each of the trigrams. Add to this that there are in each hexa-gram not just two but four trigrams (primary plus nuclear) and that theline positions and relationships also supply a wide range of associations,and one can see that there are ample resources with which to explain anygiven word or phrase. However, this does not mean that the analysis oftext in terms of structure is necessarily arbitrary. The range of associativeand argumentative pathways leading from structure to text may be widebut it is not unlimited. The particular pathway followed, though it mayseem arbitrary from the point of view of just the line or phrase under im-mediate consideration, can often be shown to be quite strongly condi-tioned by the wider context of the hexagram’s overall meaning. Thus, themeaning of trigram Ch’ien as “resolution” is conditioned by the mean-ing of Hexagram 43 as a whole—“Resoluteness”—that derives from anumber of other factors (for example, preponderance of massed yanglines) in conjunction with the forcefulness that attaches to the trigramCh’ien considered individually.

Not only can one and the same structural feature, such as a trigram,yield a multiplicity of verbalized images and concepts but the reverse canalso be true: one and the same verbal expression, recurring in severalplaces throughout the book, can be considered to derive from differentstructural features in different contexts. The expression “crossing thegreat water,” for instance, occurs in the Judgment and Lines texts twelvetimes.75 For each occurrence (except one) Richard Wilhelm explains inBook III of his translation how the phrase derives from the structure ofthe related hexagram—always in terms of component trigrams. He doesthis, however, by appeal to no fewer that eight different combinations oftrigram features.76

Implicit in the preceding discussion of the way the principal texts ofthe I Ching and the structure of the hexagram figures might be related toeach other is the idea of a kind of spectrum running from the more con-crete and specific levels of expression at one end to the more abstract andgeneral levels of expression at the other. A given meaning can express it-self anywhere along this spectrum. Thus, what is essentially the samemeaning expresses itself more concretely in the images and ideas of thetexts and more abstractly in the configurations of lines and their interre-lationships that compose the hexagram figures. Moving further along thespectrum in one direction, toward greater concreteness and specificity, weencounter the actual set of circumstances within which one’s inquiry hasarisen: here the pattern of meaning present in the moment receives, as it


were, a full-bodied instantiation. Correspondingly, if we move furtheralong the spectrum in the other direction, toward even greater abstract-ness and generality than is represented by the hexagram figures, we beginto shift into a realm of abstract conception such as is represented byJung’s theory of archetypes.77 More will be said about archetypes andtheir possible relationship to hexagrams later.78 Here we can just noteone suggestive parallel between Jungian archetypal expressions and thekinds of symbolism attached to, and supposedly derived from, the abstract structure of the I Ching—specifically from the trigrams.

Adrian Cunningham, in the context of a discussion of the notion ofstructure in the works of Jung and Lévi-Strauss, has highlighted that Jungdescribed several different classes of material as archetypal. The classesCunningham specifically mentions are that which has “a purely formal orgeometrical character—the circle or square for instance”; that which“shows a consistent binary structure . . —for example, contrasts of inner-outer, high-low, centre-periphery, right-left, before-behind”; that which“consists of images whose Gestalt derives in part from common experi-ence of the outer world—the tree, or fire, for instance, and perhaps thoseof male and female”; and finally—the most frequently occurring class inJungian writing—that which “is composed of personal figures—the greatmother, the hero, the wise old man, and so on.”79 This range of archetypalexpressions—some highly abstract, others much more concrete—reflectsthe kind of spectrum mentioned earlier. Equally interesting, however, isthe way it reflects the range of symbolism associated with the I Ching tri-grams. The trigram Ch’ien/The Creative, for example, is associated withthe formal quality of roundness; the binary pole of the male, the strong,the cold, and so on; such outer objects as jade, metal, tree fruit, and vari-ous kinds of horses; and such personal figures as the prince and father.80

SYNCHRONICITY IN THE I CHING

We are now in a position to look more closely at Jung’s claim that the IChing is based on the principle of synchronicity. There are a number ofsenses in which this can be shown to be the case, but also some restric-tions that have to be made on the claim.

First and foremost, the very method of the oracle implies that mean-ingful acausal paralleling is possible. By means of a random procedure, anabstract configuration of lines—a hexagram—together with certain ac-companying textual matter, is obtained. This is alleged to parallel one’sreal-life situation in a meaningful way without there being any normally


FIGURE 7.6. Hexagram 35, Chin/Progress.

comprehensible cause of this paralleling. Thus, in the example given earlier,Adler’s real-life dilemma concerning the advisability of seeking to marry aparticular woman was paralleled remarkably by the hexagram resultingfrom his act of consulting the oracle—a hexagram whose principal textseemed to offer him direct and unequivocal advice.

A couple of implications of the procedure for obtaining and inter-preting a hexagram are worth highlighting. First, this procedure is a meansof recording an event (consisting of a series of six subsidiary events) that isbased essentially on chance. Assuming that the line configuration one ob-tains by following this procedure is the most apposite one possible in re-lation to one’s question or situation (or at least is highly apposite, whereasothers selected at random appear not to be), then this means that bychance one has accessed the one appropriate response (or one of the veryfew appropriate responses) out of a possible 4,096 (sixty-four hexagrams,each with sixty-four possibilities of combinations of changing and unchanging lines). What is being claimed is that (in the case of the mostusual method employed) the coins, quite extraordinarily, manage to fallprecisely in the appropriate way to yield this response. If, of the eighteenindividual coin falls, just one had been different, if just one coin hadbounced, spun, or rolled differently, a completely different result couldhave been obtained with possibly even a contrary meaning. For example,suppose in a consultation one obtained the generally very favorable Hexa-gram 35, Chin/Progress (see figure 7.6), representing a time of “rapid, easyprogress” and “ever widening expansion and clarity.”81 If just one of thecoins in one’s fifth throw had landed differently, so that one obtained atotal not of eight but of seven, then the fifth line would be yang instead ofyin, and one would have accessed the generally very unfavorable Hexa-gram 12, P’i/Standstill (Stagnation) (see figure 7.7), representing a time inwhich “the creative powers are not in relation. It is a time of standstill anddecline.”82 Thus, if the most apposite hexagram is obtained (and not onlyon one occasion but in relation to each properly conducted inquiry), thisconstitutes a truly astounding “chance” phenomenon. Richard Wilhelm,far from glossing over the factor of chance in the oracle, emphasizes itscentral importance:


FIGURE 7.7. Hexagram 12, P’i/Standill (Stagnation).

Suprahuman intelligence has from the beginning made use ofthree mediums of expression—men, animals, and plants, ineach of which life pulsates in a different rhythm. Chance cameto be utilised as a fourth medium; the very absence of an im-mediate meaning in chance permitted a deeper meaning tocome to expression in it. The oracle was the outcome of thisuse of chance.83

Ritsema and Karcher likewise recognize this: according to them, in div-inatory systems such as the I Ching a “procedure using chance provides agap through which . . . spirit expresses itself by picking out one of theavailable symbols.”84

Furthermore, the paralleling that results from this chance event andthat constitutes the synchronicity itself is considered to be possible be-cause the hexagram is depicting the situation, moment, or “time” withinwhich the inquirer’s problem and consequent act of divination exist. AsJung put it, “the hexagram was understood to be an indicator of the essential situation prevailing in the moment of its origin.”85

It should be noted that the concept here of a situation, moment, or“time” needs to be understood not just as measurable clock time but assomething much more qualitative. Richard Wilhelm explains that “thetime of a hexagram is determinative for the meaning of the situation as awhole” and, according to the character of the hexagram in question, cancomprise such aspects as “the decrease or growth, the emptiness or full-ness, brought about by [the] movement” expressed by a hexagram; “theaction or process characteristic for a given hexagram”; “the law expressedthrough a certain hexagram”; or “the symbolic situation represented bythe hexagram.”86 Hellmut Wilhelm clarifies the “very concrete” concep-tion of time implicit in the I Ching:

Here time is immediately experienced and perceived. It doesnot represent merely a principle of abstract progression but is


fulfilled in each of its segments. . . . Just as space appears tothe concrete mind not only as a schema of extension but assomething filled with hills, lakes, and plains—in each of itsparts open to different possibilities—so time is here taken assomething filled, pregnant with possibilities, which vary withits different moments and which, magically as it were, induceand confirm events. Time here is provided with attributes towhich events stand in a relation of right or wrong, favourableor unfavourable.87

A cast hexagram, then, is considered to express a situation or a momentof time in the above sense, and it is this quality of the moment that char-acterizes and gives meaning to the various acausally paralleling elementsthat constitute the synchronicity.

There are two principal kinds of paralleling between states thatcan occur within I Ching synchronicities. On the one hand, the hexa-gram and its accompanying texts can be considered the outcome of aphysical event, namely, the procedure of dividing the yarrow stalks or tossing the coins. This physical outcome can then parallel and castlight on the psychic condition stated or implied in one’s inquiry. On theother hand, the hexagram and its texts can themselves be paralleled by outer physical events occurring subsequently to the act of consulta-tion. Indeed, they can often seem actually to predict the likely occur-rence of these outward patterns of events. Thus, the hexagram can serveboth as the second, decisive term in one synchronicity, where it anom-alously parallels the (usually) inner psychic state implicit in the inquiry,and also, perhaps even at the same time, as the initial term in a secondsynchronicity, where it is itself anomalously paralleled by subsequentlyoccurring (usually) outer physical events. With this dual role, the hex-agram often serves as the mediator enabling one to perceive acausalparalleling between the inner psychic and outer physical aspects ofone’s life—paralleling that otherwise one might have been much lesslikely to perceive.

Texts

There are also several senses in which the textual material associated withthe hexagrams can be seen to involve a synchronistic relationship. Occa-sionally, an image or expression in one of the texts can be understood asimplying the possibility of influence other than through normal causal


means. The text to the second line of Hexagram 61, Chung Fu/InnerTruth (see figure 7.8), reads as follows:

Nine in the second place means:A crane calling in the shade.Its young answers it.I have a good goblet.I will share it with you.88

According to Richard Wilhelm, this refers to “the involuntary influ-ence of a man’s inner being upon persons of kindred spirit.”89 Hequotes an ancient commentary on the line (attributed to Confucius)that suggests that the kind of influence in question may be capable ofoperating nonlocally:

The superior man abides in his room. If his words are wellspoken, he meets with assent at a distance of more than athousand miles. How much more then from near by!90

More generally, it is possible to see the presence of a tacit synchro-nistic worldview in the fact that imagery within a single section of text canbe so diverse and seemingly unrelated. Thus, Audrey Josephs, in the con-text of a discussion of I Ching divination, has argued that poetic metaphoris “one of the most obvious examples” of a synchronistic phenomenon:

In the juxtaposition and apparent reconciliation of quite dif-ferent or incompatible things, the imagination is stimulated tobridge the discontinuity between two images. The poet’s abil-ity to “see” such an analogical relation . . . is an awareness ofa synchronic [here � synchronistic] connection.91

In the text just mentioned, for example, what have the cranes to do withthe goblet? Or in the text to the third line of Hexagram 43, what doesgetting caught in the rain and bespattered have to do with powerful

FIGURE 7.8. Hexagram 61, Chung Fu/Inner Truth.


o

cheekbones? There is no normal causal relationship here, but rather theimplication that these diverse objects and states can be significantly re-lated to one another through the meaning that they respectively embody.It is a pattern of such deep meaning, rather than a superficial naturalisticsituation, that the lines and their texts are attempting to depict.

Again, a form of synchronicity is implied throughout in the Imagetexts (the Ta-Hsiang Chuan). Practically all of these texts begin by de-scribing a relationship between the natural phenomena symbolized by thehexagram’s primary trigrams (for example, the Image text to Hexagram43 begins: “The lake has risen up to heaven”). Then they state that thisprovides the image of the situation as a whole signified by the hexagramtitle (in the case of Hexagram 43 the text continues: “The image ofBREAK-THROUGH”). Finally, they draw a specific parallel with a kindof behavior appropriate to the chün-tzu or “superior man” within thissituation (in Hexagram 43: “Thus the superior man Dispenses richesdownward And refrains from resting on his virtue”92). As Shchutskii ob-serves, “it is impossible not to see in the thinking of the author of the Ta-hsiang chuan the latent presence of parallelism.”93

Elsewhere within the Ten Wings we occasionally find statementsthat might even more readily be understood to imply a synchronisticviewpoint. Thus, within the Commentary on the Words of the Text (WênYen) the following is said with reference to the fifth line of Hexagram 1,Ch’ien/The Creative: “Things that accord in tone vibrate together. Thingsthat have affinity in their inmost natures seek one another.”94 Again, inthe Great Treatise (Ta Chuan) it is said that when the superior man con-sults the I Ching “it takes up his communications like an echo; neither farnor near, neither dark nor deep exist for it, and thus he learns of thethings of the future.”95

Willard Peterson, in his excellent study of the Great Treatise (or, inthe alternative title that he prefers, Hsi Tz’u Chuan, “Commentary on theAttached Verbalizations”), identifies several passages that imply a syn-chronistic relationship between the I Ching and the entire cosmos. As hesees it, these passages give expression to one of the major claims beingmade by the commentary—that “the technique, for which the text of theChange is the written repository, duplicates relationships and processes atwork in the realm of heaven-and-earth.”96 In his own translation:

The Change being the book that it is, it is broad and great andfully provided. It has in it the course traced by the ongoingprocesses in the heavens. It has in it the course traced by theongoing processes among humans. It has in it the coursetraced by the ongoing processes on the earth.97


Elsewhere:

Its broadness and greatness match heaven-and-earth’s. Its fluxand continuities match the four seasons’. Its impartial fitting-ness from [embodying] yin and yang matches the sun andmoon’s. What it is good at by being easy and simple matchesthat of the greatest potency.98

The relationship that Peterson tries to convey here with the expressions“has in it” and “matches” might, he suggests, better—but still inade-quately—be conveyed by the term “duplicates.”99 As he understands it,the claim being made by the Great Treatise is not that the I Ching is “sep-arate from but equal to the cosmos,” nor that the relationship is “one ofimitating, or being parallel to, or representing in microcosm, or . . . anyother formulation which implies a gap between the Change and the realmof heaven-and-earth.”100 Rather, the I Ching and the cosmos

are each “one of two things” exactly alike, each a double ofthe other, each “has in it” the other. Everywhere and alwaysthere is change, and the change everywhere and always is thesame change, characterized by bipolarity and contained inthe Change.101

Thus: “We must imagine, or perhaps believe, that the Change actually isa formal and processual duplicate of the realm of heaven-and-earth.”102

Structure

Turning our attention to the more structural aspects of the system, wecan note that, in the case of each hexagram, a synchronistic relationshipmay exist between its lower and upper trigrams: the lower trigram is con-sidered to represent the inner aspect of the situation, while the upper tri-gram represents the outer aspect. This in itself suggests the paralleling ofinner and outer events that is so characteristic of synchronistic experi-ences. More specifically, the tradition of the I Ching, as we have seen,highlights a relationship that exists between lines occupying the analo-gous position in the lower or upper trigrams, namely, the relationship ofcorrespondence. Lines related through correspondence are not contigu-ous; hence,their sharing of characteristics is not due to a straightforwardtransmission of influence or significance from one line to the line imme-diately above it (representing the next stage in the situation). Rather, itappears that the relationship can best be understood as a kind of “action-


at-a-distance.” This “distance” could be spatial (between lower andhigher), temporal (between earlier and later), logical (between cause andeffect103), even psychological (between self and other104) or ontological(between psychic and physical). In any case, the relationship, both be-tween the lower and upper trigrams as a whole and between analogouslines in each, appears more acausal than causal.105

The lines of a hexagram are viewed as entering (or “coming”) fromthe bottom and moving upwards, eventually leaving (or “going”) at thetop.106 Thus, as the Great Treatise puts it,“The Changes is a book whosehexagrams begin with the first line and are summed up in the last.”107

Significantly, the Great Treatise remarks further, “The beginning line isdifficult to understand. The top line is easy to understand. For they standin the relationship of cause and effect.”108 This statement gives rise to anumber of important considerations. First, if the vertical movement ofthe hexagram indicates a causal development, how are we to view the lat-eral movement represented by the fact that any given line can change intoits opposite and is thereby related to the line occupying the same positionin another hexagram? This again may be a form of acausal relationship.The lateral interchange of lines (called Pang-t’ung when it occurs to anentire hexagram, converting it into its line-for-line opposite)109 is an ex-pression of the inherent cosmic tendency for things in an extreme state tochange into their opposites: the “law” of enantiodromia.110 Enantiodro-mia is a principle of change that is not dependent on cause and effect inthe normally understood sense. Without any discernible mediation or ex-ternal influence, a state of affairs can convert into its opposite simply be-cause there is an inherent tendency for it to do so. Hence, in the case ofhexagram lines, as well as being caught in the vertical momentum of de-velopment from cause to effect, we can imagine them under the horizon-tal or lateral “pull” of enantiodromia. When the lines (that is, thesituations—or aspects of situations—that they represent) are in a suffi-ciently extreme or unstable state, in other words, when the lines are“moving,” the enantiodromial tendency can “pull” them into their op-posites, effecting a change that is quite independent of the expectedcausal development. Since it is possible that any number of the six lines ofa hexagram could change laterally like this, it is clear that any hexagramsituation could convert into any other and therefore that each line of ahexagram is potentially related in this way to lines occupying the sameplace in all the other hexagrams. It might be suggested that, since theenantiodromial tendency constitutes a form of regular and, hence, poten-tially predictable connection between one state and another, it shouldtherefore be viewed as a further form of causal relationship. However,inasmuch as the relationship is not a normally understood causal one, it


qualifies for being considered acausal in the relative and provisional senseexplained in chapter 2.

A second consideration is the following. If the relationship betweenthe bottom and the top lines of a hexagram is a relationship of cause andeffect, how are we to understand the significance of the four middle lines?From one point of view, we can see them as representing subtler stages ofdifferentiation in the development from cause to effect: as the Great Trea-tise goes on to say, “if one wishes to explore things in their manifold gra-dation, and their qualities as well . . . , it cannot be done completelywithout the middle lines.”111 However, between the bottom and top linesthere exist, as we have seen, three potential relationships of correspondence(between the first and fourth, second and fifth, and third and top lines)—a kind of relationship that we have already suggested is better understoodas acausal rather than as causal. The picture we arrive at, then, is one inwhich, between a cause and its effect (the bottom and top lines) there existsa complexity of internal structural relationship that includes not only morefinely graded causal relationships (that is, the step-by-step progression fromone line up to the next) but possible acausal relationships as well (that is, correspondences). There may be some kind of abstract reflection hereof the situation within our understanding of causality generally. Often,what at one scale of consideration appears to be a causal relationship canbe shown to involve, at a subtler level of consideration, both a whole series of further causal interactions and also certain apparent elements of acausality.112

The mention in the Great Treatise of the relationship of cause andeffect being implied within the hexagram structure should caution usagainst going too far in characterizing the I Ching as being based on syn-chronicity as opposed to causality. Jung, for example, sometimes seems tooverstress this opposition: “What we call coincidence seems to be the chiefconcern of [the Chinese] mind, and what we worship as causality passesalmost unnoticed.”113 In fact, the I Ching is very much concerned withcausality. It is alleged to be a book that can help one participate in shap-ing one’s circumstances through enabling one, as Richard Wilhelm says,

to recognize situations in their germinal phases. The germinalphase is the crux. As long as things are in their beginningsthey can be controlled, but once they have grown to their fullconsequences they acquire a power so overwhelming that manstands impotent before them.114

The implication here is that events develop in an orderly and, to some ex-tent, predictable way; if certain conditions exist now, certain conse-


quences will follow later. In other words, circumstances unfold accordingto some kind of intelligible and practicable principle of cause and effect.Thus, the I Ching’s understanding of how events unfold by no means nec-essarily contradicts or negates causal thinking; rather, it enriches it with afuller picture of the kind of factors that can contribute to an understand-ing of events.

Correlative Thinking

There seems, however, no doubt that the I Ching is based on an overallview of reality and way of thinking that could be termed synchronistic,and it is from this that all the various hints of synchronicity we havebeen noting ultimately derive. Jung has specifically drawn attention to this in the context of his principal discussions of synchronicity.115

He points out, for example, that “to the ancient Chinese view . . . [t]hematter of interest seems to be the configuration formed by chance at themoment of observation and not at all the hypothetical reasons thatseemingly account for the coincidence.”116 More formally, he spells outthe difference between the causal view and the ancient Chinese “syn-chronistic” view as follows:

Just as causality describes the sequence of events, so syn-chronicity to the Chinese mind deals with the coincidence ofevents. The causal point of view tells us a dramatic storyabout how D came into existence: it took its origin from C,which existed before D, and C in its turn had a father, B, etc.The synchronistic view on the other hand tries to produce anequally meaningful picture of coincidence. How does it hap-pen that A', B', C', D', etc., appear all at the same momentand in the same place? It happens in the first place because thephysical events A' and B' are of the same quality as the psy-chic events C' and D', and further because all are the expo-nents of one and the same momentary situation. The situationis assumed to represent a legible or understandable picture.117

Jung, as we have just had occasion to note, probably makes too strong aclaim for the exclusiveness of the synchronistic mode of thinking amongthe Chinese, asserting that they were “not at all” interested in causalitybut let it pass “almost unnoticed.”118 With more specialist knowledge,Peterson surveys a range of connective concepts that can be shown tohave been used in China in the fourth to the second centuries B.C.E. andconcludes that


there were strong arguments both . . . for and against under-standing and explaining an event (1) by relating it to somethingexternal to it [that is, some form of causality], (2) by relating itto its own inherent qualities, or (3) by relating it to the bi-polarGreat Harmony, the all inclusive Way of heaven-and-earth.The arguments show that there was no consensus. There was arange of views which—except for total schemes generated frombinary oppositions—were at least vaguely similar to th[o]sefound in the contemporary Mediterran[e]an world.119

With this qualification in mind, there is, however, no doubt that some-thing very like what Jung understands by synchronicity did indeed receiveprominent emphasis within Chinese thinking.

The kind of thinking in question has been independently elucidatedby Joseph Needham in the wider context of a discussion of fundamentalideas in Chinese science.120 Needham, following a number of previousscholars,121 speaks of “coordinative,” “associative,” or “correlative”thinking, within which “conceptions are not subsumed under one another,but placed side by side in a pattern, and things influence one another notby acts of mechanical causation, but by a kind of ‘inductance’ . . . a kindof mysterious resonance.”122 The underlying idea is that for the ancientChinese the universe was an organism in which “nothing was un-caused,but nothing was caused mechanically,”123 a universe where

organisation came about, not because of fiats issued by asupreme creator-lawgiver, which things must obey subject tosanctions imposable by angels attendant; nor because of thephysical clash of innumerable billiard-balls in which the mo-tion of the one was the physical cause of the impulsion of theother. It was an ordered harmony of wills without an or-dainer; it was like the spontaneous yet ordered, in the sense ofpatterned, movements of dancers in a country dance of fig-ures, none of whom are bound by law to do what they do, noryet pushed by others coming behind, but cooperate in a vol-untary harmony of wills.124

Needham makes a point of distinguishing this organismic view fromthe kind of “participative” thought that Lévy-Bruhl considered character-istic of primitive thinking.125 The latter is, according to Lévy-Bruhl, insen-sitive to logical and physical absurdity, so that, to the “primitive” mind,anything can be the cause of anything else.126 Chinese correlative thinking,by contrast, is based on a detailed system of correspondences whereby all


the phenomena of experience are considered to belong to one or the otherof a number of precisely defined categories: principally, the binary catego-rization of yin and yang and the five-“element” categorization of earth,metal, water, wood, and fire. The I Ching’s distribution of phenomenaamong the eight trigrams and sixty-four hexagrams is another instance.127

As Needham notes in specific criticism of Lévy-Bruhl, “once a system ofcategorisation such as the five-element system is established, then anythingcan by no means be the cause of anything else”;128 on the contrary, one isleft with “a picture of an extremely and precisely ordered universe.”129

Needham contrasts this kind of coordinative thinking based on pat-tern with the “atomic” thinking that came to prevail in the West underthe influence of Greek (more specifically, Democritean) philosophy andultimately provided the conditions for the development of mechanisticscience. Lacking a strong orientation in atomic thinking, he argues, theChinese failed to develop comparable forms of modern science. But, as Needham also points out, modern science has by now, with quantummechanics and astrophysics and new understandings in biology, begun toreach beyond the domain of applicability of mechanistic thought intorealms where organismic thought becomes more relevant. This is not to say that the ancient Chinese worldview has all along been ahead ofmodern science and just waiting for the latter to catch up, but that thekind of coordinative thinking characteristic of the Chinese has a validitythat is complementary to, rather than in contradiction with, mechanistic-atomic thought. Coordinative thinking is neither unscientific nor proto-scientific, but an integral part of a more comprehensive form of scientificthinking that is perhaps still in the process of being developed.

It might be thought that this kind of correlative or coordinativethinking already has a long history in Western culture. One thinks imme-diately of Renaissance figures such as Paracelsus, Robert Fludd, andAgrippa of Nettesheim, and of the various traditions such as Kabbalah,alchemy, and astrology on which these thinkers drew and which stretchedback many centuries before them. Is this not essentially the same as theChinese view on which the I Ching is based? Jung appears to have thoughtso: “Only in astrology, alchemy, and the mantic procedures do we find nodifferences of principle between our attitude and the Chinese.”130 How-ever, Needham suggests that an important distinction needs to be drawnbetween the two traditions. According to his reading of the history of ideas:

Europeans could only think in terms either of Democriteanmechanical materialism or of Platonic theological spiritual-ism. A deus always had to be found for a machina. Animas,entelechies, souls, archaei, dance processionally through the


history of European thinking. When the living organism, asapprehended in beasts, other men, and the self, was projectedon to the universe, the chief anxiety of Europeans, dominatedby the idea of a personal God or gods, was to find the “guid-ing principle.” . . .

Yet this was exactly the path that Chinese philosophy hadnot taken. The classical statement of the organismic idea byChang Chou in the -4th [that is, 4th B.C.E.] century . . . hadset the tone for later formulations, expressly avoiding theidea of any spiritus rector. The parts, in their organisationalrelations, whether of a living body or of the universe, weresufficient to account, by a kind of harmony of wills, for theobserved phenomena.131

It is true that a kind of organismic view closer to that of the Chinese canbe found within Western philosophy, but Needham points out that theprincipal exponents of this can be traced back in a line that leads—through Whitehead, Hegel, Lotze, Schelling, and Herder—ultimately toLeibniz.132 Now, as was pointed out earlier, through his connections withJesuit missionaries, Leibniz had been able to study certain areas of Chinesethought, in particular the doctrines of the great Neo-Confucian philoso-pher Chu Hsi in which the organismic view receives one of its most refinedexpressions. Needham therefore suggests that the organismic view enteredWestern philosophy as a Chinese import via the Monadology of Leibniz.

Again, however, the basic distinction Needham is making in the pre-ceding needs to be qualified. As Benjamin Schwarz has pointed out, in atleast some versions of correlative cosmology the Chinese understanding ofHeaven would not have been all that different from European conceptionsof a heavenly “ruler,” “father,” and “sustaining principle.”133 Again:

One cannot know exactly what Needham means by the term“guiding principle,” but I think that the difference betweenthe “world soul” of Western organismic thought is not as dis-tinguishable from [the major correlative cosmologist] TungChung-shu’s Heaven as he would have us believe.134

We can conclude from the whole of the preceding discussion of cor-relative thinking that Jung was indeed basically correct to emphasize thesimilarity between his concept of synchronicity and one of the major an-cient Chinese modes of thought. However, this comparison needs to bemade cautiously and with considerable sensitivity to the possible varietiesand nuances of premodern thought, both Eastern and Western.


ORACULAR AND SPONTANEOUSSYNCHRONICITIES COMPARED

We are now also in a position to highlight some of the major similaritiesand differences between synchronicities that occur spontaneously andthose that occur in relation to a systematic procedure such as consultingthe I Ching. This task might help bring into sharper focus some of thecharacteristics of synchronicity generally.

The most obvious similarity, which in fact is the reason the two cat-egories of occurrence are compared at all, is that both involve connectionsbetween events based on parallel meaning rather than on any normallyrecognizable form of causality. Naturally, a whole range of possible im-plications deriving from this basic fact (the implications explored through-out this book) will therefore also largely be held in common by the twokinds of happening. Both, for instance, are considered to express the par-ticular psychophysical pattern of meaning active within a given situationor “time.” This said, it does seem that with the I Ching one’s attention isdirected not just, or even primarily, to the acausality of the phenomenon;the presence and operation of this is virtually taken for granted by the im-plicit worldview of the I Ching. Paradoxically, what is of particular inter-est is often how the oracle can help one appreciate such causal elementswithin the I Ching’s field of operation as the lawfulness, and, hence(within certain bounds), the predictability, of the unfolding of events.With spontaneous synchronicities, by contrast, while these kinds of causalelements may be present, they usually are much less prominent, since at-tention tends to be on the conspicuously acausal character of the events,which is what gets the composite event of the synchronicity noticed at all.

When discussing spontaneous synchronicities I noted that the con-scious attitude of the experiencer seems often to participate in generating, orat least affecting the character of, the experiences. Plaskett, for instance,refers frequently in his material to the “triggering effect” whereby his inter-est and intentions regarding a particular subject or idea preceded the occur-rence of coincidences involving that subject or idea. With the I Ching, too,there is an important element of participation, though of a much more con-scious, ordered, and controllable nature. This does not imply that syn-chronicities involving the I Ching can be precisely determined as to theirform, content, and timing, but simply that these parameters are significantlymore circumscribed than is the case with spontaneous synchronicities,where in most cases they are barely circumscribed at all. Thus, when oneconsults the I Ching, one formulates a specific question, or at the very leastfocuses on a specific subject of inquiry. With spontaneous synchronicities,by contrast, one does not usually formulate an inquiry consciously. An


inquiry may be implied at the time of the synchronicity in the form of amajor interest or intention, but it is not usual that it will have been formu-lated verbally in the expectation of receiving a response to it. In Plaskett’smaterial there are many coincidences that could be interpreted as answers toimplicit questions (instances of the “triggering effect”) but none that can beseen as responses to explicitly formulated questions.

Again, when using the I Ching, one chooses the time at which theoracular response is to be given. The receiving of this response, as I havenoted, can itself constitute a synchronicity with the already more or lessknown situation of the inquirer (the meaning of the hexagram and text par-allels the meaning in the situation). In this case the response functions as thesecond term in a synchronicity. However, it is also possible that the I Chingresponse can prefigure events, in which case it is functioning as the first termin a future synchronicity. Thus, in choosing the time at which the I Ching re-sponse is received one can be both choosing the time at which one syn-chronicity actually occurs and also fixing a temporal reference point for theoccurrence of another subsequent synchronicity. With spontaneous syn-chronicities, none of this happens by conscious choice, since by definitionone has no real say in when the synchronistic event is going to take place.

With the above contrast, certain qualifications are again required.Principally, it needs to be noted that there is much middle ground be-tween systematically generated synchronicities and spontaneous syn-chronicities. It is, for example, theoretically quite possible to formulate aquestion for oneself and then consider the next spontaneously occurringsynchronicity as the answer to that question. Again, it is sometimes pos-sible to create conditions that past experience has shown to be conduciveto the likely occurrence of synchronicity (conditions of emotional inten-sity, perhaps).135 In such cases, however, there is no certainty or evenlikelihood, comparable to that experienced when using the I Ching, thatany synchronicity will in fact occur, and if it does, when precisely.

A further ambiguous category of events would be answers toprayers or results of magical procedures. These are meaningful happen-ings that occur other than by normally understood causal means, and assuch might qualify as synchronicities. On the one hand, they are gener-ated events in the sense that they are related to a deliberate intention onthe part of the experiencer. On the other hand, they are spontaneousevents in the sense that when or even whether they will occur remainshighly uncertain. Furthermore, the fact that they are intended or willeddistinguishes them from synchronicities based on the I Ching, which arethe result of an inquiry into how things are and are likely to becomerather than of an active desire to make things otherwise.


With the I Ching there is a more or less systematic procedure for interpreting the synchronicity represented by the oracular response. Thismeans that the psychophysical pattern of meaning, the “time,” is on thewhole much more easily accessed and defined than is the case with thespontaneous experiences. Again, while both kinds of synchronicity cangive direction to the experiencer, with the I Ching this is much more ex-plicit, based as it is on texts that in part are specifically intended to pro-vide counsel for action. With spontaneous synchronicities one can, asPlaskett not infrequently did, allow oneself to follow a train of associa-tions suggested by one’s experiences and get direction from it. However,if one does this, it generally requires considerable ingenuity to construethe experience as providing this direction, and it is not often proffered directly as is the case with the texts of the I Ching.

The language of the I Ching texts is, as I have noted, often very obscure, with imagery and concepts from a wide variety of contexts jux-taposed enigmatically to create a highly polysemantic overall texture.This is characteristic of oracular language generally (witness the notori-ously ambiguous responses of the Delphic Oracle in ancient Greece). It isalso, however, characteristic of the content of spontaneous synchronici-ties when this is construed as possibly communicating meaning to (orthrough) an experiencer. The tantalizing nature of Plaskett’s materialprovided ample illustration of this. On the one hand, the degree of intel-ligibility within and between the contents of his various experiences wassuch as to suggest at least areas of underlying coherent meaning. On theother hand, determining with any precision what this meaning might ac-tually be proved extremely difficult, if not ultimately impossible, not leastbecause the contents often seemed to direct attention with equal plausi-bility in several directions at once. Because of this obscurity of language,the interpretation both of I Ching responses and of spontaneous syn-chronicities usually requires symbolic analysis, which is therefore a fur-ther point of similarity between the two kinds of experience.

It might be thought that because the I Ching consists largely offixed textual matter, the meaning of these texts would, over the centuries,also have become more or less fixed, and that this feature of the oracleneeds to be distinguished from the totally open nature of the content ofspontaneous synchronicities, which can consist of any kind of image oridea and, hence, of an unlimited range of possible meanings. However,there are a number of considerations that make this distinction less sharpthan might initially be supposed.

First, as has already been argued at length, although the text has inmost respects remained more or less the same for two millennia, throughout


that period it has always been subject to diverse forms of interpretation.This is no doubt partly due to the polysemantic nature of the language andimagery of the texts. However, a further reason is that the texts may be onlyan approximate expression of the deeper abstract meaning depicted by thehexagram figures. These hexagram figures, as we have seen, have an extra-ordinary structural richness that gives them a wide-ranging, not to say un-limited, field of applicability. The texts, when appreciated as expressions ofthis underlying structural meaning and as pointers toward it, begin to losesomething of their superficially fixed character.

Even so, one might ask, how can a mere sixty-four hexagram figureswith their accompanying texts possibly come close to competing with thetotal freedom and infinite variability of contents expressible through spon-taneous synchronicities? In answer to this, we can note first that, althoughthere are indeed only sixty-four hexagrams, there are separate texts for eachhexagram line, which means that there are 6 � 64 � 384 sections of textualmatter in addition to the sixty-four Judgment texts. Furthermore, because inan actual consultation there might be any number of moving lines in one’shexagram response (anything from none to all six) and, hence, one’s pri-mary hexagram could change into any of the other hexagrams (or remainunchanging), it follows that there are in fact 64 � 64 � 4,096 possible re-sponses to each act of consultation. To be sure, these 4,096 responses haveto make use of the more limited range of 64 � 384 � 448 sections of prin-cipal textual matter. However, in each case they will combine different se-lections of text, with the result that the overall meaning, even if sometimessimilar, will nonetheless be different each time. Then there is the fact that ineach case the response is obtained in relationship to a definite inquiry, andthis inquiry has emerged out of a situation (the circumstances of the in-quirer) that in the last analysis is unique. Thus, whichever of the 4,096 re-sponses one obtains will be further individualized by its relationship to one’sspecific and unique inquiry. We have to conclude, then, that the range ofmeanings accessible through I Ching divination is, in spite of the system’shighly structured nature, in its own way infinite.136

If the I Ching is thus less restricted than might at first appear, it is alsoarguable that spontaneous synchronicities, for their part, are less unre-stricted than might first appear. According to Jung’s understanding, synchronistic experiences generally only occur when an archetype is con-stellated. Underlying the varied detail of the experiences described byJung—a dream of jewelery and an insect flying in through a window, birds alighting on the roof of a house, above-random guessing in ESP experiments—one or another archetype was considered to be active: in thesecases, the archetypes of rebirth, of death, and of magical effect, respectively.


Thus, the multiplicity of phenomena involved in synchronicities is consid-ered to be ordered by a limited range of much more basic factors. Quite howlimited this range is never becomes clear in Jung’s writings. In one place, hewrites, “There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations inlife.”137 Elsewhere he writes that “just as certain biological views attributeonly a few instincts to man, so the theory of cognition reduces the arche-types to a few, logically limited categories of understanding.”138 Whetherhis estimate of the actual number of typical situations and, hence, of arche-types would be somewhere in the region of sixty-four or nearer 4,096, nev-ertheless it is certain that it would be a manageable number rather than oneclose to infinity.139 Spontaneous synchronicities, then, when viewed from aJungian perspective as expressions of activated archetypes (or from the per-spective of any non-Jungian but analogous model), appear much less freeand open than might initially be supposed. In the way we have just beenconsidering them, there is a movement from obvious multiplicity to the dis-cerning of a finite range of inner structures (archetypes) informing that mul-tiplicity. With the I Ching, precisely the opposite was the case: we saw firstthe limited range of structures (the sixty-four hexagrams) and then howthese could nonetheless be related to an infinite multiplicity of phenomena.Thus, while I Ching synchronicities and spontaneous synchronicities seemon the surface to be very different—the former extremely limited in their ex-pression, the latter extremely free—arguably, when viewed more closely,both involve the same relationship between a finite set of basic structuresand an infinity of phenomenal expressions. It is just that, in the way we hap-pen to encounter the two kinds of synchronicity, they appear to converge to-ward this common ground from opposite directions.

SPIRIT IN THE I CHING

Most traditional accounts of how the I Ching works attributed a centralrole to the factor of spirit or shen.140 However, it is possible to acknowl-edge that the system works without invoking the concept of spirit. Beforediscussing the spiritual perspective, I shall briefly review some ancientand modern explanations in which this is the case.

A Working I Ching without Spirit

The system of correlative cosmology, so central to an understanding of the apparently synchronistic way in which the I Ching operates, can be understood as not requiring any spiritual underpinnings. BenjaminSchwarz expresses this view:


To the extent that the entire system [of correlative cosmology] isconceived of as working through a vast network of correspon-dences and resonances among natural and human phenomena,its key terms do not refer to acts of spirits and gods. Yin/yangand the five elements are presumably abstract entities . . . andthus presumably not spirits or gods.141

The possibility of understanding how the I Ching operates in termsof an abstract system rather than in terms of spirit or spiritual agenciesremained an option throughout the long history of the work, even fortheorists wholly believing in its efficacy. For instance, Wang Fu-chih inthe seventeenth century could understand the system—for which he hadtremendous respect—in terms of an ordered continuum underlying all ofreality. Hellmut Wilhelm recapitulates his theory as follows:

His premise is an ordered continuum of existence, which isgoverned by laws and is all embracing. This continuum “lacksappearance”—that is, it is not immediately accessible to senseperception. But through the dynamism inherent in existence,images are differentiated out of the continuum which by theirstructure and position partake of the laws of the continuum;they are, in a sense, individuations of this continuum. On theone hand, these images—that is, the sixty-four situations ofthe Book of Changes—can be perceived and experienced; onthe other hand, as embodiments of the law and therefore gov-erned by it, they are open to theoretical speculation. With thisthey enter into the field of numbers and may be numericallystructured and ordered as objects of theory governed by law.Thus each situation can be apprehended in two ways: throughdirect experience as a consequence of the dynamism of exis-tence, and through theoretical speculation as a consequence ofthe continuousness of existence and its government by laws.The oracle serves to bring the two aspects into harmony witheach other, to co-ordinate a question resulting from immedi-ate, differentiated experience, with the theoretically correct—and only correct—answer. The questioner thus obtains accessto the theoretically-established aspect of his own situation,and by reference to the texts set forth under this aspect in theBook of Changes he obtains counsel and guidance from theexperience of former generations and the insights of the greatmasters. Thus the synchronicity disclosed by the oracle ismerely the apprehension of two different modes of experienc-ing the same state of affairs.142


Jung expresses a similar notion, though framed in more psycholog-ical terms. He believed that, through the principle of synchronicity, theoracle is “grasping a situation as a whole and thus placing the detailsagainst a cosmic background—the interplay of Yin and Yang.”143 Forhim the technique accesses and reveals something of the “absolute knowl-edge” of the unconscious or objective psyche. It therefore provides “amethod of exploring the unconscious.”144

A more reductive psychological explanation would be that there isno objective factor at work in obtaining the particular hexagram onedoes, and that the significance discerned in it is projected there from one’sunconscious. Jung expressed acute awareness of this possibility: “any per-son of clever and versatile mind,” he remarks, after summarizing the im-pressive results of his own experiment in consulting the oracle, “can turnthe whole thing around and show how I have projected my subjectivecontents into the symbolism of the hexagrams.” However, he also notesthat “such a critique, though catastrophic from the standpoint of West-ern rationality, does no harm to the function of the I Ching,” since theimportant thing, from the Chinese standpoint, is simply “that the intelli-gent individual realizes his own thoughts.”145

Common to each of these three characterizations of what the IChing does—expresses networks of correspondences within a situation,formulates numerically the law-governed order underlying a situation, ordiscloses the unconscious background to a situation—is the basic factthat in some way it makes the unknown known. It enhances one’s appre-ciation of one’s present situation and its inherent potentialities. In prac-tical terms, this gives one a new perspective onto one’s situation—a perspective that is often significantly broader than that which one hadprior to consulting the oracle. The result, when the oracular procedure issuccessful, is that one’s blocked energy (the impasse that caused one toturn to the oracle) is released.

The I Ching, and similar divinatory procedures, could be usefuleven if they do not work in any of the senses mentioned above but simplybecause they introduce an element of randomness into decision making.As the Belgian mathematician David Ruelle remarks with reference to thetheory of games, “in a competitive situation, the best strategy often involves random, unpredictable behavior.”146 For example:

In everyday life you will find that your boss, your lover, or yourgovernment often try to manipulate you. They propose to youa “game” in the form of a choice in which one of the alterna-tives appears definitely preferable. Having chosen this alterna-tive, you are faced with a new game, and very soon you findthat your reasonable choices have brought you to something


you never wanted: you are trapped. To avoid this, rememberthat acting a bit erratically may be the best strategy. What youlose by making some suboptimal choices, you make up for bykeeping greater freedom.147

Thus, without even engaging with the question of whether reality mightbe structured so as to allow for the possibility of relationships of syn-chronicity, a contemporary mathematician can conclude that the “cleveruse of oracular unpredictability by an intelligent leader may have been agood way to reach optimal probabilistic strategies.”148

Contrary to the assumptions underlying the above kinds of explana-tion, a number of parapsychological experiments carried out in regard tothe I Ching suggest that a factor may be operating in the oracle other than,or in addition to, projection or randomness. In 1971, Charles Honortonand Lawrence Rubin reported on an experiment that indicated that sub-jects who did not believe in ESP were less able than those who believed init to distinguish between a response obtained from the I Ching accordingto the traditional procedure and a control response selected randomly.149

When, twenty years later, Michael Thalbourne and some colleagues at-tempted to replicate the experiment, they failed to reproduce the specificfinding in regard to belief in ESP. However, they found instead that “thosewho believed in the efficacy of the I Ching did in fact tend to rate their ac-tual reading as more relevant than their control reading, in the absence ofany normal information as to which was really the correct one.”150 Suchresults suggest that the efficacy of the I Ching cannot entirely be accountedfor in terms of either projection or the theory of games.

Shen

As for what additional factor there might be that could account for the apparent efficacy of the I Ching in producing distinctly meaningful responses, traditionally this would most often be identified as one or another understanding of spirit or shen. Jung summarizes that “accordingto the old tradition, it is ‘spiritual agencies,’ acting in a mysterious way, thatmake the yarrow stalks give a meaningful answer. These powers form, as itwere, the living soul of the book.”151 Jung is alluding in particular to a state-ment at the beginning of the Discussion of the Trigrams (Shuo Kua), ac-cording to which the ancient sages “invented the yarrow-stalk oracle inorder to lend aid in a mysterious way to the light of the gods [shenming].”152 In drawing attention to this, Jung remarks that more impersonalunderstandings of how the I Ching works, such as his own argument con-


cerning synchronicity, “of course never entered a Chinese mind.”153 This,however, is far from true. We have already seen how sophisticated the im-plicit understandings of correlative cosmology could be. What RichardLynn says about the concept of Tao applies equally to that of shen :

[T]hroughout traditional Chinese society . . . a spectrum ofopinion existed, at one end of which, the Dao [Tao]—espe-cially when it was understood as the manifestation of the willof Heaven—was seen as an unconscious and impersonal cos-mic order that operated purely mechanistically, and, at theother, as something with a consciousness that heeded theplights of both human kind as a whole and the individual inparticular and could answer collective and individual pleas forhelp and comfort. Although intellectual, elite culture tendedto hold to the former view and popular culture favored thelatter, much ambivalence concerning this issue can be foundin the writings of many a sophisticated thinker.154

The word “shen” has connotations that enable it to be related toboth personal and impersonal understandings. Peterson, discussing theuse of the word in the Great Treatise, points out that sometimes it “canbe understood and translated as ‘divinities’ without much risk of beingmisled or misleading.” More often, however, the word is used adjecti-vally and “in a more extended sense than ‘partaking of the defining qual-ity or characteristic of divinities.’”155 To approximate the broadermeaning of the adjectival use of shen, Peterson therefore adopts RudolfOtto’s term “numinous.” This term,

if we reduce or neglect its intended religious overtones, pointsto a certain quality, state or condition which cannot be fully ap-prehended and which some of us today might acknowledge aspresent more in an abstract and depersonalized manner thanwas perhaps characteristic of the divinities, spirits, demons, andnumen (and shen) which some of our ancestors recognized.156

Peterson emphasizes that, in contradistinction to Kant’s notion of the“noumenon,” to which his own understanding of shen as numinositybears certain similarities, “in the usage of the ‘Commentary’, what is shenis present ‘out there’ and can be taken on by a person; it impinges on ourlives as well as our mental processes.”157 This accords with the under-standing of spirit favored in the present work.


Indeed, the concept of “shen” as used in the Great Treatise is inmany ways synonymous with my earlier characterization of spirit inchapter 2. In addition to being numinous and directly experienceable,shen is considered to have a transcendent nature, as suggested by state-ments such as “that aspect of [the Tao] which cannot be fathomed interms of the light and the dark is called spirit.”158 Its transgressive ormiraculous quality is evoked by claims that “spirit is bound to no oneplace,”159 and “only through the divine can one hurry without haste andreach the goal without walking,”160 and again “when a man compre-hends the divine and understands the transformations, he lifts his natureto the level of the miraculous.”161 Shen is considered intrinsically bene-ficial and purposive: “That which furthers on going out and coming in, that which all men live by, they called the divine.”162 In particular itsintelligible nature is emphasized: “Perfect concepts come about by en-trance into the numinous, which, once had, allows one to extend their ap-plication to the utmost” (Lynn’s translation).163 Again: “Heaven createsdivine things; the holy sage takes them as models.”164

The Great Treatise makes very strong and explicit claims about therelationship of shen to the I Ching. The book can “penetrate all situationsunder heaven” precisely because it is “the most divine thing on earth.”165

Thus, “whoever knows the tao of the changes and transformations, knowsthe action of the gods.”166 We are told that contact with a spiritual dimen-sion was involved when the ancient sages first invented the I Ching: “theyfathomed the tao of heaven and understood the situations of men. Thusthey invented these divine things in order to meet the need of men.”167 Theinstruments utilized in consulting the oracle, the yarrow stalks, are them-selves described as “round and spiritual.”168 And finally, the actions andeffects intended to be brought about by involvement with the I Ching arealso characterized as spiritual: “By virtue of its numinous power, it lets oneknow what is to come”; the sages “used it to make their virtue numinousand bright”; “they made a drum of it, made a dance of it, and so exhaustedthe potential of its numinous power.”169

A Modern Integration

The work on the I Ching by Rudolf Ritsema and Stephen Karcher picksup on this ancient understanding of the spiritual aspect of the oracle asimplied in the Great Treatise and integrates it with the insights of Jung’sanalytical psychology. For Karcher, as for Peterson, shen is understood toencompass the meanings “spirit, spirits, what is numinous or spirituallypotent.”170 The I Ching, as Ritsema and Karcher see it, “gives voice to a


spirit concerned with how we can best live as individuals in contact withboth inner and outer worlds.”171 Proper use of the oracle brings about“an intuitive clarity traditionally called shen ming or the light of the gods.It is a bright spirit that is creative, clear-seeing and connected.”172 Withimplicit reference to the statement in the Great Treatise about drummingand dancing, they view the I Ching as performing a quasi-shamanic role:

Like the shamans and sages of old, this tradition maintains,the person who uses these symbols to connect with I [that is,change or versatility] will have access to the numinous worldand acquire a helping-spirit, a shen. The I Ching is more thana spirit, it channels or connects you to spirit. It puts its users ina position to create and experience their own spirit as a pointof connection with the forces that govern the world.173

Thus, engaging with the oracle can be “an epiphanic experience of thatgolden age when the Gods and humans met. In the irrational and subver-sive encounter with the demons of divination, we experience ourselvesonce again ensouled, as spirits in an imagined world.”174 In fact, “it isthis creation of a dynamic field of meaning between the individual andthe ‘spirits,’ re-established in each consultation through the oracle’simage-clusters, that is the real heritage of the text.”175

The traditional elements in this understanding of the I Ching areclear enough. Ritsema and Karcher also make explicit the modern psy-chological elements. The I Ching, they write, is “a particular kind ofimaginative space set off for a dialogue with the gods or spirits, the cre-ative basis of experience now called the unconscious.”176 The shenming or “light of the gods” is understood as “the unconscious forcescreating what you experience.”177 Divination involves a “dynamic in-terchange between conscious and unconscious” in which “both aremoved”;178 it relies on “occulted daimones, the imagines agentes or ‘liv-ing units of the unconscious psyche’ which Jung called the ‘architects ofdreams and symptoms.’ . . . In modern terms ‘daimones’ have much incommon with ‘complexes.’”179

This integration of the ancient understanding with modern psy-chology clearly accommodates the concept of spirit. However, Ritsemaand Karcher’s epistemological position regarding the direct experience-ability of spirit is essentially the same as Jung’s. In an attempt to summa-rize the main currents of thought informing the work of Eranos,including his and Karcher’s own work on the I Ching, Ritsema formu-lates seven points, two of which are that “Matter and Spirit, the essence


of the world, are transcendental and in themselves unknowable,” andthat “the psyche is the only realm of immediate experience. It is the realmin which the Spirit constellates images and Matter constellates con-cepts.”180 This epistemological position differs both from the ancientChinese understanding and from that of the present work.181 However,this position of Ritsema and Karcher’s can readily enough be modi-fied into conformity with the view I am proposing by making the samekind of epistemological maneuvers as were made in chapter 2 in regard to Jung.

Spirit and Synchronicity

That a system of thought based on the principle of synchronicity shouldso readily lend itself to being understood in spiritual terms suggestsagain the congruence between synchronicity and spirit that has beenelaborated throughout this book. It would be otiose to run throughagain, in the context of the I Ching, all the various specific connectionsbetween synchronicity and spirit. However, there is one connection thatis worth highlighting, both because of its central importance and becauseit is arguably being made by the Great Treatise itself.

In his study of the Great Treatise, Peterson draws on various pas-sages, including some of the ones quoted above, to provide a rich accountof how the spiritual or numinous was understood in the ancient world tobe related to the I Ching. He notes, as I have, that the I Ching was un-derstood both to connect us to the numinous and to be itself numinous.Concerning the first of these points, he remarks:

The “Commentary” itself wants us to recognize that theChange is the means by which we can have access to the pow-erful, numinous presence which is hidden and difficult, per-haps even impossible, to perceive, just as it gives us access toknowledge of the subtle origins of change in heaven-and-earthand in human society.182

Concerning the I Ching’s being itself numinous, he says, largely on thebasis of passages I have already quoted,183 that “the Change is numinousin the same way that it is change”;184 or again that “according to the‘Commentary,’ the Change goes and is everywhere, for it is numinouspresence.”185 Putting these two points together, Peterson concludes fur-ther that “by being numinous, the Change is the medium giving us accessto all that is numinous.”186


Earlier in this chapter, when discussing the synchronistic nature ofthe I Ching, I noted that Peterson interprets the Great Treatise to be im-plying that the book “duplicates relationships and processes at work inthe realm of heaven-and-earth.”187 Passages such as have been quotedand referred to previously now put him in a position in which he canmake a similar claim regarding the spiritual or numinous: that “the Bookof Change is a mysterious and potent duplicate of that which is numi-nous.”188 From this one might make either of two inferences. On the onehand, one could infer that it is the synchronistic power of the I Ching, itscapacity to “duplicate” all relationships and processes, that enables italso to duplicate the numinous or spiritual. In this case, the I Chingwould be spiritual by virtue of synchronicity. On the other hand, onecould infer that it is because the I Ching is numinous or spiritual that itis capable of establishing and elucidating the kind of anomalous connec-tions between events that are the essence of what is meant by synchronic-ity. In this case, the I Ching would be synchronistic by virtue of spirit.Probably, however, the implied view is that both factors, synchronicityand spirit, operate within the book together, and together contribute, inequally unfathomable ways, toward its efficacy. As Peterson concludes:“As far as I can discern, we are being asked to accept that the Book andits technique duplicate change in heaven-and-earth, in the realm of thatwhich is numinous, and in our minds. There are no strict rules or guidesfor how it does it.”189

A Sacred Vessel

The Great Treatise, as one of the appendices incorporated in the I Ching,provides a particularly intimate and authoritative account of how the bookis to be understood. There exists, however, a further and possibly evenmore intimate source of testimony to the nature of the work. Given that thebook is an oracle, capable in a sense of speaking for itself, one might won-der how, when questioned to this effect under suitably important circum-stances, it might elect to characterize its own nature. It happens that theoracle has indeed been prompted to make a couple of such self-characteri-zations at important moments during its entry into Western culture.

When C. G. Jung was writing his foreword to the Wilhelm–Baynestranslation of the I Ching, he took the bold step of “personif[ying] thebook in a sense” and asking its own “judgment about its present situa-tion, i.e., my intention to introduce it to the English-speaking pub-lic.”190 The answer he obtained was Hexagram 50, Ting/The Cauldron(see figure 7.9). He comments:


FIGURE 7.9. Hexagram 50, Ting/The Cauldron.

In accordance with the way my question was phrased, the textof the hexagram must be regarded as though the I Ching itselfwere the speaking person. Thus it describes itself as a caul-dron, that is, as a ritual vessel containing cooked food. Herethe food is to be understood as spiritual nourishment.191

He quotes some of Richard Wilhelm’s commentary:

The ting, as a utensil pertaining to a refined civilization, sug-gests the fostering and nourishing of able men, which re-dounded to the benefit of the state. . . . Here we see civilizationas it reaches its culmination in religion. The ting serves in of-fering sacrifice to God. . . . The supreme revelation of God ap-pears in prophets and holy men. To venerate them is trueveneration of God. The will of God, as revealed through them,should be accepted in humility.192

Jung then adds: “Keeping to our hypothesis, we must conclude that theI Ching is here testifying concerning itself.”193 In other words, the IChing is effectively describing itself as “a ritual vessel containing . . .spiritual nourishment” and as a medium through which the will of Godcan be revealed.194

Interestingly, Ritsema and Karcher, in the introduction to their recenttranslation, report a very similar experience as the first of eight examples of“Encounters with the Oracle.” The anonymous questioner is said to haveencountered the I Ching for the first time twenty-five years previously (thatis, in the late 1960s) during a period of profound personal crisis and col-lective disorientation. He asked the I Ching: “Who are you? How should Iuse you?” Here again, the answer was Hexagram 50, called by Ritsemaand Karcher “The Vessel/Holding.”195 Thus, according to their commen-tary and glosses, the book was describing itself and the experiencer’s rela-tion to it “in terms of the imaginative capacity of a sacred vessel. Itemphasizes that securing and imaginatively transforming the material at


hand is the adequate way to handle [the situation].”196 They further expli-cate the hexagram title through the following “Associated Contexts”:

Vessel/holding, TING: bronze cauldron with three feet andtwo ears, sacred vessel used to cook food for sacrifice to godsand ancestors; founding symbol of family or dynasty; meltingpot or recepticle; hold, contain, transform; establish, secure;precious, respectable.197

They conclude that the experiencer’s realization that the I Ching was“offer[ing] itself to him personally as an imaginative process . . . was likeputting on a new fate, entering an imaginal world,” giving him “the per-sonal experience of meaning” and “the feeling of being in touch with thehidden spirit of the time.”198

That the nature of the I Ching, the Book of Changes, may indeed beappositely symbolized by the ting, the cauldron or vessel, is suggested al-ready by the early commentator Wang Pi (226–49 C.E.), who writes: “TheCauldron is a hexagram concerned with the full realization of the poten-tial in change.”199 It is therefore quite remarkable that Jung, when he in-vited the book to speak concerning itself, should have obtained preciselythis hexagram; and even more remarkable that an independent requestfor the oracle to characterize itself, as reported by Ritsema and Karcher,should likewise have yielded Hexagram 50.200 Finally, in the light of thissymbolic equation of the I Ching with a cauldron or vessel of spiritualtransformation, it is tempting to recall from the previous chapter the ap-parent self-revelation of synchronicity as being symbolically equivalent tothe spiritually transformative vessel of the Holy Grail.


yanulada


NOTES

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1. This incident is reported by Gilles Quispel, “Gnosis and Psy-chology,” in The Gnostic Jung, ed. Robert A. Segal (Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 1992), 247.

2. Paul Auster, The Red Notebook and Other Writings (London:Faber and Faber, 1995), 28–29.

3. Bob Bloomfield, Synchronistic Images (Cheddar, UK: CharlesSkilton Ltd., 1987), 102–4.

4. Marie-Louise von Franz, “Matter and the Psyche from the Pointof View of Jung,” in Psyche and Matter (Boston: Shambhala, 1992),24–25.

5. See, for example, Eric J. Sharpe, Comparative Religion: A His-tory (London: Duckworth, 1975).

6. C. G. Jung, “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle”(1952), in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, ed. Sir Herbert Read,Michael Fordham, and Gerhard Adler, exec. ed. William McGuire, trans.R. F. C. Hull [hereafter Collected Works], vol. 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,1969), 417–519; and “On Synchronicity” (1951), in Collected Works,vol. 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 2nd ed. (London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 520–31.

7. C. G. Jung, “Foreword to the ‘I Ching’” (1950), in CollectedWorks, vol. 11, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 2nd ed. (Lon-don: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 589–608.

8. Many of Jung’s statements on synchronicity, apart from those inhis essay “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle,” are gatheredin Roderick Main, ed., Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal (Lon-don: Routledge; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).

189

9. See Marie-Louise von Franz, Number and Time: ReflectionsLeading Towards a Unification of Psychology and Physics, trans. AndreaDykes (London: Rider, 1974); On Divination and Synchronicity: ThePsychology of Meaningful Chance (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1980);and Psyche and Matter.

10. For some possible connections between the spiritual and scien-tific implications of synchronicity as elaborated by von Franz, see Roder-ick Main, “Magic and Science in the Modern Western Tradition of the IChing,” Journal of Contemporary Religion 14, no. 2 (1999), 263–75.

11. For the source of the Jungian use of this term, see HenryCorbin, “Mundus Imaginalis or the Imaginary and the Imaginal,” Spring(1972): 1–19.

12. For Hermes, see Allan Combs and Mark Holland, Synchronic-ity: Science, Myth, and the Trickster (New York: Paragon House, 1990;repr. Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1994). The authors also refer to trickstergods from other cultures, such as Ictinike, Coyote, Rabbit, and othersfrom Native American mythology; Maui of the Polynesian Islanders;Loki of the old Germanic tribes of Europe; and Krishna from India (ibid.,82). For Pan, see James Hillman, “An Essay on Pan,” in Pan and theNightmare, by W. H. Roscher and James Hillman (Zürich: Spring Publi-cations, 1972), esp. lvi–lix; for Dionysus, see Andrew F. Burniston, “Syn-chronicity: A Dionysian Perspective,” Harvest 40 (1994): 118–27.

13. Arnold Mindell, “The Golem: An Image Governing Synchro-nicity,” Quadrant 8, no. 2 (1975): 5–16; also Sidney Handel, “MirabileDictu,” in Chicago 92: The Transcendent Function: Individual and Col-lective Aspects: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress for An-alytical Psychology Held in Chicago 23–28 August 1992, ed. Mary AnnMattoon (Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Daimon Verlag, 1993), 387–94.

14. For example, see Michael Fordham, “Reflections on the Arche-types and Synchronicity,” in New Developments in Analytical Psychology(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), 35–50; “An Interpretation ofJung’s Thesis about Synchronicity,” British Journal of Medical Psychology35 (1962): 205–10; Mary Williams, “An Example of Synchronicity,” Jour-nal of Analytical Psychology 2, no. 1 (1957): 93–95; Rosemary Gordon,“Reflections on Jung’s Concept of Synchronicity,” in In the Wake of Jung:A Selection from “Harvest,” ed. Molly Tuby (London: Coventure, 1983),129–46; James F. McHarg, “An Enquiry into the Ostensibly SynchronisticBasis of a Paranoid Psychosis,” in Research in Parapsychology 1972: Abstracts and Papers from the Fifteenth Annual Convention of the Para-psychological Association, 1972, ed. W. G. Roll, R. L. Morris, and J. D. Morris (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1973), 87–89; Barbara

190 Notes to Chapter 1

Wharton, “Deintegration and Two Synchronistic Events,” Journal of An-alytical Psychology 31, no. 3 (July 1986): 281–85; Jan Marlan, “BeyondProjection and Introjection: The Archetypal and Unitary Field of the Trans-ference” (Chicago: C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, 1996); and GeorgeBright, “Synchronicity as a Basis of Analytic Attitude,” Journal of Analyt-ical Psychology 42, no. 4 (1997): 613–35.

15. For example, see C. A. Meier, “Psychosomatic Medicine fromthe Jungian Point of View,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 8, no. 2(1963): 103–21; and Ira Progoff, Jung, Synchronicity, and Human Des-tiny (New York: Dell, 1973; repr., New York: Julian Press, 1987).

16. Aniela Jaffé, “Synchronistic Phenomena,” in Apparitions: AnArchetypal Approach to Death, Dreams and Ghosts (Irving, TX: Spring,1978), 187–206; Mary Gammon, “‘Window into Eternity’: Archetypeand Relativity,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 18, no. 1 (1973):11–24; Carolin S. Keutzer, “The Power of Meaning: From Quantum Mechanics to Synchronicity,” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 24,no. 1 (Winter 1984): 80–94; Sandra Brenneis and Frederic Boersma, “Typology and Trance: Developing Synchronicity in Hypnotic Induc-tion,” Medical Hypnoanalysis Journal 8, no. 2 (June 1993): 45–56;Robert S. McCully, “The Rorschach, Synchronicity, and Relativity,” inToward a Discovery of the Person, ed. Robert Wm. Davis (Burbank, CA:Society for Personality Assessment, 1974), 33–45; and Lavonne H.Stiffler, “Adoptees and Birthparents Connected by Design: SurprisingSynchronicities in Histories of Union/Loss/Reunion,” Pre- and PerinatalPsychology Journal 7, no. 4 (Summer 1993): 267–86.

17. C. A. Meier, ed., Atom and Archetype: The Pauli/Jung Letters,1932–1958 (London: Routledge, 2001). Also see in Journal of Analyti-cal Psychology 40, no. 4 (1995), Beverley Zabriskie, “Jung and Pauli: ASubtle Asymmetry,” 531–53; and David Lindorff, “One ThousandDreams: The Spiritual Awakening of Wolfgang Pauli,” 555–69, and“Psyche, Matter and Synchronicity: A Collaboration between C. G. Jungand Wolfgang Pauli,” 571–86. Also see David Lindorff, Pauli and Jung:The Meeting of Two Great Minds (Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2004);Herbert van Erkelens, “Wolfgang Pauli’s Dialogue with the Spirit ofMatter,” Psychological Perspectives 24 (1991): 34–53; and MarialuisaDonati, “Beyond Synchronicity: The Worldview of Carl Gustav Jungand Wolfgang Pauli,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 49, no. 4 (2004):707–28.

18. Joseph Cambray, “Synchronicity and Emergence,” AmericanImago 59, no. 4 (2002): 409–35 and “Synchronicity as Emergence,” inAnalytical Psychology: Contemporary Perspectives in Jungian Analysis,

Notes to Chapter 1 191

ed. Joseph Cambray and Linda Carter (Hove, UK: Brunner-Routledge,2004), 223–48; and George Hogenson, “The Self, the Symbolic, and Syn-chronicity: Virtual Realities and the Emergence of the Psyche,” Journal ofAnalytical Psychology 50, no. 2 (2005): 271–84.

19. Jean Shinoda Bolen, The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity andthe Self (1979; repr., New York: Harper and Row, 1982); Robert Aziz, C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity (Albany: StateUniversity of New York Press, 1990); and Victor Mansfield, Synchronic-ity, Science, and Soul-Making: Understanding Jungian Synchronicitythrough Physics, Buddhism, and Philosophy (Chicago: Open Court,1995). Also see Mansfield’s Head and Heart: A Personal Exploration ofScience and the Sacred (Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2002).

20. Bolen, The Tao of Psychology, 24.21. On the ethical dimension of synchronicity, see Robert Aziz,

“Synchronicity and the Transformation of the Ethical in Jungian Psy-chology,” in Asian and Jungian Views of Ethics, ed. Carl B. Becker(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), 65–84.

22. See Marilyn Nagy, Philosophical Issues in the Psychology of C. G. Jung (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), for acarefully argued case that “the conceptual structure of Jung’s psychologyis based on philosophical postulates which express an idealist and a meta-physical view of reality” (265).

23. Roderick Main, The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity and Jung’sCritique of Modern Western Culture (Hove, UK: Brunner-Routledge, 2004).

24. Paul Bishop, Synchronicity and Intellectual Intuition in Kant,Swedenborg, and Jung (Lampeter, UK: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000).

25. Alice Johnson, “Coincidences,” Proceedings of the Society forPsychical Research 14 (1899): 158–330.

26. Arthur Koestler, The Roots of Coincidence (London: Hutchin-son, 1972); and Alister Hardy, Robert Harvie, and Arthur Koestler, TheChallenge of Chance: Experiments and Speculations (London: Hutchin-son, 1973). Also significant for the study of coincidence is ArthurKoestler, The Case of the Midwife Toad (London: Picador 1975), whichcontains an appendix (pages 133–42) summarizing the book on coinci-dence by the Austrian biologist Paul Kammerer, Das Gesetz der Serie(Stuttgart: Deutches Verlags-Anstalt, 1919).

27. Koestler, The Roots of Coincidence, 111–14.28. Ibid., 122.29. Ibid., 119.30. Hardy, Harvie, and Koestler, The Challenge of Chance, 159–60.31. More fully the Koestler, Inglis, Bloomfield (or KIB) Foundation.


32. Brian Inglis, Coincidence: A Matter of Chance—or Synchronic-ity? (London: Hutchinson, 1990).

33. Jane Henry, “Coincidence Experience Survey,” Journal of theSociety for Psychical Research 59, no. 831 (April 1993): 97–108.

34. Ibid., 101.35. Ibid., 104, 108. I mention here only the results that bear most

directly on the subject of the present work.36. Alan Vaughan, Incredible Coincidence: The Baffling World of

Synchronicity (New York: Harper and Row, 1979, repr., New York: Bal-lantine Books, 1989); John Beloff, “Psi Phenomena: Causal VersusAcausal Interpretation,” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 49,no. 773 (September 1977): 573–82; Ivor Grattan-Guinness, “What AreCoincidences?” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 49, no. 778(December 1978): 949–55, and “Coincidences as Spontaneous PsychicalPhenomena,” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 52, no. 793(February 1983): 59–71; Lila L. Gatlin, “Meaningful Information Cre-ation: An Alternative Interpretation of the Psi Phenomenon,” Journal ofthe American Society for Psychical Research 71, no. 1 (January 1977):1–18; Charles Tart, “Causality and Synchronicity: Steps towards Clarifi-cation,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 75(1981): 121–141; and Stephen Hladkyj, “A Comparative Analysis of theExperience of Synchronicity as a Possible Spontaneous Mystical Experi-ence” (master’s diss., University of Manitoba, Canada, 1995).

37. Sigmund Freud, “Dreams and Telepathy,” in The StandardEdition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud [here-after Standard Edition], vol. 18, trans. and ed. James Strachey (London:Hogarth Press, 1964); “Psycho-analysis and Telepathy,” in Standard Edi-tion, vol. 18; “The Occult Significance of Dreams,” in Standard Edition,vol. 19, trans. and ed. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1964);and “Dreams and Occultism,” in Standard Edition, vol. 22, trans. anded. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1964).

38. George Devereux, ed., Psychoanalysis and the Occult (NewYork: International Universities Press, 1953; repr., London: SouvenirPress, 1974).

39. Jule Eisenbud, Parapsychology and the Unconscious (Berkeley,CA: North Atlantic Books, 1983); and “Of Mice and Mind, or The Sor-cerer’s Apprentice: A Cautionary Tale,” Journal of the American Societyfor Psychical Research 84, no. 4 (October 1990): 345–64.

40. Mel Faber, Synchronicity: C. G. Jung, Psychoanalysis, and Reli-gion (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998).

41. See Main, The Rupture of Time, 32–35.


42. George Spencer Brown, “Statistical Significance in PsychicalResearch,” Nature, July 25, 1953, 154–56; and Probability and ScientificInference (London: Longmans, 1957).

43. Persi Diaconis and Frederick Mosteller, “Methods for StudyingCoincidences,” Journal of the American Statistical Association 84, no.408 (December 1989): 853–61. For a summary, see Main, The Ruptureof Time, 27–28.

44. See Inglis, Coincidence, 98–99.45. C. G. Jung, “Letters on Synchronicity” (1950–55), in Collected

Works, vol. 18, The Symbolic Life (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,1977), 504; and von Franz, On Divination and Synchronicity, 50.

46. See Caroline Watt, “Psychology and Coincidences,” EuropeanJournal of Parapsychology 8 (1990–91): 73–74; Combs and Holland,Synchronicity, 158; and Brian McCusker and Cherie Sutherland, “Prob-ability and the Psyche I: A Reproducible Experiment Using Tarot, and theTheory of Probability,” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 57,no. 822 (January 1991): 344–53.

47. Watt, “Psychology and Coincidence,” 66–84. For a summaryof her arguments as well as other psychological considerations that canbe invoked to account for the experience of meaningful coincidence, seeMain, The Rupture of Time, 28–32. Also see Peter Brugger et al., “Coin-cidences: Who Can Say How ‘Meaningful’ They Are?” in Proceedings ofthe Parapsychological Association 34th Annual Convention Held in Hei-delberg 8–11 August 1991 (Heidelberg: Parapsychological Association,1991), 65–72.

48. Watt, “Psychology and Coincidences,” 82.49. Diaconis and Mosteller, “Methods for Studying Coincidences,”

859.50. See, for example, Combs and Holland, Synchronicty, 15, 18,

20–31; Inglis, Concidence, 178–85; F. David Peat, Synchronicity: TheBridge between Matter and Mind (New York: Bantam, 1987), 168–73;Louis Zinkin, “The Hologram as a Model for Analytical Psychology,” Jour-nal of Analytical Psychology 32 (1987): 1–21; and Carolin Keutzer, “Ar-chetypes, Synchronicity, and the Theory of Formative Causation,” Journalof Analytical Psychology 27 (1982): 255–62. The principal texts referred toby these writers are David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (Lon-don: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980); and Rupert Sheldrake, A New Sci-ence of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation (London: Blond andBriggs, 1981), and The Presence of the Past (London: Collins, 1988).

51. Von Franz, Number and Time, 192–93, 209–11, and Psycheand Matter, 50–51, 305–6. Also see Gatlin, “Meaningful InformationCreation”; and Jacques Vallée, Messengers of Deception (Berkeley, CA:And/Or Press, 1979), 210–17.


52. See, for example, Robert Hopcke, There Are No Accidents: Syn-chronicity and the Stories of Our Lives (London: Macmillan, 1997); andPhil Cousineau, Soul Moments: Marvelous Stories of Synchronicities—Meaningful Coincidences from a Seemingly Random World (Berkeley CA:Conari Press, 1997).

53. Wayne McEvilly, “Synchronicity and the I Ching,” PhilosophyEast and West 18, no. 3 (1968): 137–49; Willard Peterson, “Making Con-nections: ‘Commentary on the Attached Verbalizations’ of the Book ofChange,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42, no. 1 (1982): 67–116, and“Some Connective Concepts in China in the Fourth to Second CenturiesB.C.E.,” Eranos 57 (1988): 201–34; Michael Thalbourne et al., “A FurtherAttempt to Separate the Yins from the Yangs: A Replication of the Rubin-Honorton Experiment with the I CHING,” European Journal of Parapsy-chology 9 (1992–93): 12–23; and Stephen Karcher, “Divination,Synchronicity, and Fate,” Journal of Religion and Health 37, no. 3 (1998):215–28, and Total I Ching: Myths for Change (London: Time Warner,2003), 67. Also see Roderick Main, “Synchronicity and the I Ching: Clar-ifying the Connections,” Harvest: Journal for Jungian Studies 43, no. 1(1997): 51–64, and “Magic and Science”.

54. I am grateful to Stuart Rose for supplying me with these figuresfrom the survey he conducted as part of his doctoral thesis within the De-partment of Religious Studies at Lancaster University. See his “Trans-forming the World: An Examination of the Roles Played by Spiritualityand Healing in the New Age Movement,” Ph.D. thesis, Lancaster Uni-versity, 1997. The figures were supplied when the thesis was still inprogress in November 1995. The kinds of psi experience reported as oc-curring more frequently than synchronicity were (in descending order)telepathy, 52.3 percent; precognition, 44.1 percent; and past life, 40.7percent. Of equally frequent occurrence was clairvoyance, 40.6 percent.Of less frequent occurrence were clairaudience, 25.3 percent; cosmic in-telligence, 20.3 percent; psychokinesis, 8.8 percent; and out-of-body ex-periences, 5.7 percent. A more detailed breakdown of those reportingexperiences of synchronicity shows male, 46 percent; female, 38 percent;under 35 years of age, 39 percent; between 35 and 55, 43 percent; over55, 38 percent; and therapists, 55 percent.

55. See, for example, Combs and Holland, Synchronicity; Peat,Synchronicity; Vaughan, Incredible Coincidence; Bolen, The Tao of Psy-chology; and even Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order; and Shel-drake, A New Science of Life and The Presence of the Past. Indeed, thesurvey by Stuart Rose revealed Jung was mentioned second most fre-quently as a major influence on the lives of respondents.

56. Typical of this tendency is Wayne Dyer, You’ll See It When YouBelieve It (London: Arrow, 1993), in which we find in chapter 6, titled


“Synchronicity,” statements such as the following: “Acknowledgment ofsynchronicity in our lives nurtures our divine connection to the invisible,formless world. It allows us to begin the awakening process and to see thatwe can use our ability to think and be thought, to reshape and redirect ourentire lives” (210). See also James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy (Lon-don: Bantam, 1994), esp. 11–28.

57. The relationship between the New Age and Jung’s theory ofsynchronicity is addressed in Main, The Rupture of Time, 144–74.

58. Edward Thornton, Diary of a Mystic (London: George Allenand Unwin, 1967), 124–33.

59. The material was subsequently included in a book published bythe experiencer. See James Plaskett, Coincidences (Hastings, UK: TamworthPress, 2000).

60. See especially, C. G. Jung, Collected Works, vol. 12, Psychol-ogy and Alchemy, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968),43–46.

CHAPTER 2:SYNCHRONICITY AND SPIRIT

1. See Anthony Flew, “Coincidence and Synchronicity,” Journalof the Society for Psychical Research 37, no. 677 (November 1953): 199,in which he argues that there is no special category of events—other thanjust coincidences generally—to which the term “synchronicity” applies.On the alleged vacuity of “spirit” and related terms, see Alfred J. Ayer,Language, Truth, and Logic (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1980),41–42, 151–58.

2. Stephen Jenkins, The Undiscovered Country (Sudbury, UK:Neville Spearman, 1976), 108–9.

3. Zechariah 1:8; 6:1–8.4. Jenkins, The Undiscovered Country, 108.5. Ibid.6. Ibid., 108–9.7. Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, 1977 ed., s.v. “coin-

cidence.” Different dictionaries capture slightly different nuances withinthe concept. For example, The Oxford English Dictionary, 1989 ed., s.v.“coincidence,” emphasizes that the absence of causal connection may beonly apparent: a coincidence is “the notable occurrence of events or cir-cumstances without apparent causal connection.” On the other hand, thisdoes not make explicit that the parallel occurrence may be either simul-taneous or consecutive.


8. Note the plural “horses” in each case in Zechariah 6:2–3: “Inthe first chariot were red horses; and in the second chariot black horses;And in the third chariot white horses; and in the fourth chariot grizzledand bay horses.”

9. See, for example, Arthur Koestler, The Roots of Coincidence.(London: Hutchinson, 1972). Also see Ivor Grattan-Guinness, “Coinci-dences as Spontaneous Psychical Phenomena,” Journal of the Society forPsychical Research 52, no. 793 (February 1983): 59–71.

10. See, for example, Alan Vaughan, Incredible Coincidence: TheBaffling World of Synchronicity (New York: Harper and Row, 1979;repr., New York: Ballantine, 1989); F. David Peat, Synchronicity; TheBridge between Matter and Mind (New York and Bantam, 1987); andBrian Inglis, Coincidence: A Matter of Chance—or Synchronicity? (Lon-don: Hutchinson, 1990).

11. Jenkins, The Undiscovered Country, 108.12. C. G. Jung, “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle”

(1952), in Collected Works, vol. 8, The Structure and Dynamics of thePsyche, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 426.

13. C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (London: Collins,1979), 405.

14. As in the subtitle of Jung, “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connect-ing Principle.”

15. Ibid., 441.16. C. G. Jung, “On Synchronicity” (1951), in Collected Works,

vol. 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 2nd ed. (London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 525.

17. Ibid.18. Ibid., 525–26.19. Jung, “Synchronicity,” 436.20. Ibid., emphasis added.21. Ibid., 439.22. Ibid., 440.23. Ibid., 439–40.24. Ibid., 439.25. For a more detailed discussion of how synchronicity relates to

analytical psychology, see Roderick Main, The Rupture of Time: Syn-chronicity and Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture (Hove, UK:Brunner-Routledge, 2004), 14–26.

26. Jung, “On Synchronicity,” 526. In the “Résumé” added to the1955 English edition of his principal essay, Jung attempts to refine thistripartite definition in the light of his view that the coinciding events of a


synchronicity should both be considered psychic. See C. G. Jung, Syn-chronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (London: Ark Paperbacks,1987), 144–45; see also his, “Synchronicity,” 444–45. However, as Ihave demonstrated in detail elsewhere (see Main, The Rupture of Time,44–47), this attempted refinement generates more problems than itsolves, so that the version given here remains the more satisfactory. For afurther detailed discussion of Jung’s definitions, see Main, The Ruptureof Time, 12–14, 39–47.

27. Jung, “Synchronicity,” 481, 483.28. Jung, “On Synchronicity,” 522.29. This is appreciated by Ivor Grattan-Guinness who observes,

“The usual understanding of coincidence is that two or more events takeplace in some strikingly correlative way (for example, more or less simultaneously [emphasis added]), but each event inhabits its owncausative framework, disjoint from the frameworks of the otherevent(s)” (“What Are Coincidences?” Journal of the Society for Psychi-cal Research 49, no. 778 [December 1978]: 949). Jane Henry is also sen-sitive to this point: “Typically [coincidences] concern simultaneous (ornear-simultaneous) experiences, though extremely improbable eventsmay be related much more distantly in time” (“Coincidence ExperienceSurvey,” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 59, no. 831 [April1993]: 97).

30. Only then did I begin to explore what possible symbolic mean-ing the image of “origami” might have for me.

31. James Plaskett, revised presentation of coincidence narrative,typewritten manuscript, July 2, 1992, present writer’s personal collec-tion, 33–34.

32. Each of these terms—psychic, physical, inner and outer—I usein nontechnical, common-sense ways. Dreams, thoughts, and memoriesare examples of the psychic; trees, books, and bodies are examples of thephysical. By “inner” is meant having to do primarily with oneself; for ex-ample, a thought in one’s own mind or a sensation or action of one’s ownbody. By “outer” is meant not having to do primarily with oneself; forexample, a dream of someone else’s, an action by someone else, or a stateof affairs in the environment independent of oneself. I also acknowledgethat perhaps no event is wholly one thing or the other, and that there canbe areas of ambivalence as to whether certain given events are primarilyphysical or psychic, inner or outer.

33. Edward Thornton, The Diary of a Mystic (London: GeorgeAllen and Unwin, 1967), 125. See chapter 4 of this study for a full dis-cussion of Thornton’s synchronistic experiences.


34. C. G. Jung, “Letters on Synchronicity: To Michael Fordham,1st July 1955,” in Collected Works, vol. 18, The Symbolic Life (London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), 508.

35. C. G. Jung, Collected Works, vol. 14, Mysterium Coniunctio-nis (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963), 464–65.

36. This said, Jung’s development of the concept synchronicity shouldnot be viewed solely as an attempt to resolve the dualism between psycheand matter. This is how Roger Brooke seems to view it. He considers thatJung’s psychology generally, for all that it attempts to sustain the view that“psyche and body are not separate entities but one and the same life” (see C. G. Jung, “On the Psychology of the Unconscious” [1917/1926/1943], inCollected Works, vol. 7, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 2nd ed.[London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966], 115) nevertheless perpetuatesa Cartesian dualism by assuming that psyche is “an interior locality outsideof which is the body and the world” (Roger Brooke, Jung and Phenome-nology [London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1991], 68). In this light Brookesees the concept of synchronicity primarily as “a magical attempt on Jung’spart to jump over the chasm that his separation of subject and object had al-ready created” (ibid., 175). What such an interpretation overlooks is theradically anomalous nature of the events that Jung was designating as syn-chronistic. He was not just looking for a concept that would enable psycheand matter to be seen ubiquitously as “one and the same life.” He was also,even more importantly, offering a descriptive and explanatory category fora very specific kind of experience.

37. A case could be made for adopting an understanding ofacausality that likewise reflects common experience. One can readilyenough become aware of events within the field of one’s normal experi-ence that seem to be connected meaningfully but not in any obviouscausal way. To be sure, one may be fairly confident that with a modicumof serious reflection one could account for the connection as being eithercausal in some way or else totally spurious, the result of projection. Butthe fact remains that prima facie, as immediately experienced, the eventstrikes one as acausal. Indeed, if the same kind of mental rigor that wasused to discern the hidden causal relationships in such cases was alsoused to search for deeper forms of acausality—for example, the fact thatthe laws of physics should be as they are and not otherwise might be con-sidered an instance of deep acausality, Jung’s “general acausal ordered-ness”—one might find that at each level of understanding both causaland acausal relationships were capable of remaining in the picture, nei-ther of them being fully explicable in terms of the other. This, presum-ably, is why Jung conceived of them as being complementary concepts.


38. Charles Tart, “Causality and Synchronicity: Steps towardsClarification,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 75(April 1981): 130–31.

39. Ibid., 131.40. Ibid., 132.41. Ibid., 135.42. Ibid.43. Macmillan Dictionary of Religion, 1994, s.v. “Spirit.” How-

ever, even this definition may be less neutral than intended. As RobertSegal points out, the anthropologist Edward Tyler insists that for primi-tives “soul” and “spirit” are material, the metaphysical notion of imma-teriality having no meaning for primitives (see Robert Segal, Theorizingabout Myth [Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999], 8).

44. New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967, s.v. “Spirit,” by A. J. Mc-Nicholl; C. G. Jung, “Spirit and Life” (1926), in Collected Works, vol. 8,The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 2nd ed. (London: Routledgeand Kegan Paul, 1969), 319–20.

45. Jung, “Spirit and Life,” 329.46. C. G. Jung, “The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales”

(1945/1948), in Collected Works, vol. 9i, The Archetypes and the CollectiveUnconscious, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), 209.

47. Concise Dictionary of Religion, 1993, s.v. “Spirit.”48. Ibid. Cf. New Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. “Spirit: Christian

Concept,” by A. J. McNicholl, in which Christian thought is said to rec-ognize “three main kinds of spirit: (1) the human soul, incomplete in itsmode of subsisting and extrinsically dependent on the body; (2) pure fi-nite spirit, i.e., the angel, perfectly subsisting and independent of matter;and (3) Absolute Spirit, or God, infinite, utterly pure, and fully actualbeing (subsistent existence) without any limitation.”

49. Encyclopedia of Religion, 1987, s.v. “Soul: Christian Concept:Soul and Spirit,” by Geddes MacGregor. On the interchangeability of theterms “soul” and “psyche,” also see Victor White, Soul and Psyche: AnEnquiry into the Relationship of Psychotherapy and Religion (London:Collins and Harvill Press, 1960), esp. 11–31; also 217–25.

50. Encyclopedia of Religion.51. New Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. “Spirit.”52. Ibid.53. Ibid., s.v. “Spirit: Christian Concept.”54. Ibid.55. Ken Wilber, Jack Engler, and Daniel P. Brown, Transforma-

tions of Consciousness (Boston: Shambhala, 1986), 74.


56. Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye: The Quest for the New Paradigm,exp. ed. (Boston: Shambhala, 1990), 209.

57. Ibid., 212.58. Jung’s primary reference in these discussions is to the German

word “Geist” that, as was noted previously, has a different root meta-phor from that of ruah, pneuma, spiritus, and so forth. However, it isclear that Jung is also aware of, and taking into account, the words fromthe other languages with their metaphorical associations to breath (see,for example, “Spirit and Life,” 319–20).

59. Jung, “Spirit and Life,” 320.60. Ibid., 330.61. Ibid., 335.62. Ibid., 336.63. Jung, “The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales,” 208.64. Ibid., 212.65. Ibid.66. This is, in effect, part of the strategy both of Jung (“The Phe-

nomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales,” 210–12) and of Wilber (KenWilber, “The Great Chain of Being,” Journal of Humanistic Psychology33, no. 3 [Summer 1993]: 59–60).

67. This strategy also informs both Jung’s approach (“The Phenom-enology of the Spirit in Fairytales,” 209–10) and Wilber’s (Ken Wilber,“Reply to Schneider,” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 29, no. 4 [Fall1989]: 494–98).

68. See, for example, Wilber, “The Great Chain of Being,” 53.69. See, for example, Encyclopedia of Religion, s.v. “Soul: Christian

Concept: Soul and Spirit,” in which the Pauline understanding of spirit issaid to be effectively of a “dimension . . . in which the human participatesin the divine”—the divine thus clearly being something “beyond” spirit.

70. Cf. the last of the quotations from the New Catholic Encyclo-pedia above.

71. Cf. Jung, “The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales,”208, where one characterization given is of “spirit as a higher and psy-che as a lower form of activity.”

72. Cf. Wilber’s “spectrum of consciousness” model in KenWilber, The Spectrum of Consciousness (Wheaton, IL: Quest, 1977) andthroughout his writings. However, as I explain later, I do not see the re-lationship between the phases of the spectrum as hierarchical in as stronga sense as does Wilber.

73. Both points of view are registered by Jung, “The Phenomenol-ogy of the Spirit in Fairytales,” 208.


74. See Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, trans. John W. Harvey,2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958). For a fuller discussionof numinosity, see chapter 3 of the present study, subsection on “Numi-nosity: Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans.”

75. Cf. Andrew Samuels, Bani Shorter, and Fred Plaut, A CriticalDictionary of Jungian Analysis (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,1986), s.v. “Spirit”: “the usual response [to the activity of spirit] is one ofaffect, whether positive or negative”; they also refer to spirits’ “numinouspower and the effectiveness of their interventions.”

76. Cf. the quotations above from the New Catholic Encyclopedia(spirit is “not subject to determinations of time and space”) and fromWilber (spirit is “a point where the soul touches eternity”).

77. Cf. the further quotations above from the New Catholic Ency-clopedia (spiritual reality is “not composed of parts spatially distinctfrom one another”) and from Wilber (absolute spirit involves “nondualawareness or unity consciousness”).

78. See Ken Wilber, “Odyssey: A Personal Inquiry into Humanisticand Transpersonal Psychology,” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 22,no. 1 (Winter 1982): 66, 84–85.

79. Cf. the New Catholic Encyclopedia’s inclusion of “intelligence,reason, knowledge of universals” as among the factors that have beenidentified as “the radical and essential manifestation of spirit” (quotedpreviously).

80. See Wilber, Eye to Eye, 97.81. This kind of understanding is clearly expressed already in

Plato’s Republic, for example, 506d–518b.82. See Wilber, “The Great Chain of Being,” 52–65.83. Ibid., esp. 54–55.84. C. G. Jung, “The Undiscovered Self (Present and Future),” in

Collected Works, vol. 10, Civilization in Transition, 2nd ed. (London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), 257–58.

85. Jung, “The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales,” 212.86. Jung, “Spirit and Life,” 328.87. Ibid.88. C. G. Jung, “Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology”

(1931), in Collected Works, vol. 8, The Structure and Dynamics of thePsyche, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 353.

89. Ibid.90. Ibid., 353–54.91. Edward C. Whitmont, “Prefatory Remarks to Jung’s ‘Reply to

Buber’,” Spring (1973): 192.92. Ibid.


93. Ibid., 189.94. Ibid.95. Ibid., 193.96. For a summary of Kant’s philosophy and its relationship to

Jung’s psychology, see Stephanie de Voogd, “Fantasy versus Fiction:Jung’s Kantianism Appraised,” in Jung in Modern Perspective, ed. RenosK. Papadopoulos and Graham S. Saayman (Hounslow, UK: WildwoodHouse, 1984), 204–28. For more depth, see Paul Bishop, Synchronicityand Intellectual Intuition: Kant, Swedenborg, and Jung (Lampeter, UK:Edwin Mellen, 2000).

97. Ibid., 204, citing C. G. Jung, “On the Nature of the Psyche”(1947/1954), in Collected Works, vol. 8, The Structure and Dynamics ofthe Psyche, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 171.

98. Stephanie de Voogd, “C. G. Jung: Psychologist of the Future,‘Philosopher’ of the Past,” Spring (1977): 180.

99. Ibid., 180–81. The implied epistemological stance is the oneexplicated by James Hillman wherein “the archetype is wholly immanentin its image” (cited in Roberts Avens, Imagination Is Reality: WesternNirvana in Jung, Hillman, Barfield, and Cassirer [Dallas, TX: Spring,1980], 45; also see 93).

100. De Voogd, “Fantasy versus Fiction,” 225.101. Ibid., 227.102. Wolfgang Giegerich, “The Rescue of the World: Jung, Hegel,

and the Subjective Universe,” Spring (1987): 107–14.103. Ibid., 110.104. Ibid.105. Ibid. With these words Giegerich cuts through one of the great

controversies surrounding Jung’s psychology of religion. Also see JamesW. Heisig, Imago Dei: A Study of C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion(London: Associated University Presses, 1979).

106. Giegerich, “The Recue of the World,” 111.107. Ibid., 110.108. Ibid., 111.109. Ibid. That there could be “land beyond Kant” is, according to

Giegerich, demonstrated by the case of Hegel who, “because he had paidthe entire toll Kant demands, was free of Kant” (ibid.).

110. Ibid., 108.111. Whitmont, “Prefatory Remarks,” 193.112. Ibid., 192.113. Ibid.114. Ibid., 194.115. Ibid.


116. Jung, “The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales,” 212.117. Whitmont, “Prefatory Remarks,” 195.118. One could just as well argue that all psychic experience is in-

escapably colored by spirit; indeed, that any experience at all, whetherpredominantly spiritual or psychic or physical, inevitably also involvesthe other two aspects and so is bound to be colored by them to some de-gree. Psyche, according to this view, is not unique in being pervasive.

119. See again Wilber, “Reply to Schneider,” 494–498.120. Jung, “Spirit and Life,” 319.121. Ibid., 335–36.122. Ibid.123. Jung, “The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales,” 214;

emphasis added.124. Ibid.125. The main weight of Jung’s argument here has to be carried by

dreams, since fairytales are in many cases demonstrably much less spon-taneous than he supposed. See John M. Ellis, One Fairy Story Too Many:The Brothers Grimm and Their Tales (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1983).

CHAPTER 3:THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION OF

SPONTANEOUS SYNCHRONICITIES

1. On Jung’s understanding and use of the idea of the numinous,see Leon Schlamm, “The Holy: A Meeting-Point between Analytical Psy-chology and Religion,” in Jung and the Monotheisms: Judaism, Christian-ity, and Islam, ed. Joel Ryce-Menuhin (London: Routledge, 1994), 20–32.

2. Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, trans. John W. Harvey,2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958).

3. Ibid., 6.4. Ibid., 12.5. Ibid., 11.6. Ibid., 12.7. Ibid., 13–24.8. Ibid., 25–30.9. Ibid., 26.

10. Ibid., 31–40.11. Ibid., 31.12. Ibid., 27.13. Ibid.


14. Ibid., 28.15. Ibid., 29.16. Ibid., 28–29.17. Ibid., 16–17.18. Persi Diaconis and Frederick Mosteller, “Methods for Studying

Coincidences,” Journal of the American Statistical Association 84, no.408 (December 1989): 859. Freud, too, considered coincidences a possi-ble source of the experience of the uncanny. See his “The Uncanny”(1919), in Standard Edition, vol. 17, trans. and ed. James Strachey (Lon-don: Hogarth Press, 1964), 237–40, 247–48.

19. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, 22.20. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study

in Human Nature, 38th impression (London: Longmans, Green, 1935),381–82.

21. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, 24.22. Ibid., 31.23. See, for example, Alan Vaughan, Patterns of Prophecy (Lon-

don: Turnstone Books, 1974), 23–24.24. This point was noted specifically by Robert Aziz in his

C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity (Albany: StateUniversity of New York Press, 1990), 80.

25. Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What OneIs, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1979), 93.

26. R. F. Holland, “The Miraculous,” in Religion and Under-standing, ed. D. Z. Phillips (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), 167.

27. Colin Brown, Miracles and the Critical Mind (Grand Rapids,MI: William B. Eerdmans, Exeter, UK: Paternoster Press, 1984), 174–76.

28. Holland, “The Miraculous,” 157.29. Ibid.30. Jung, too, sometimes referred to synchronicities as miracles. See,

for example, C. G. Jung to Dr. H., August 30, 1951, in C. G. Jung Letters2: 1951–61, ed. Gerhard Adler and Aniela Jaffé, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Lon-don: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976), 21–23. However, see also letter to A. D. Cornell, February 9, 1960, 537–43, in which, after seeming tocall synchronicities miracles (537, 539), Jung later remarks that the syn-chronistic event “is not ‘miraculous’ but merely ‘extraordinary’ and unexpected” (540). See also Roderick Main, The Rupture of Time: Syn-chronicity and Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture (Hove, UK:Brunner-Routledge, 2004), 146.

31. See Alan Vaughan, Incredible Coincidence: The Baffling Worldof Synchronicity (New York: Harper and Row, 1979; repr., New York:Ballantine, 1989), 147, citing Warren Weaver, Lady Luck: The Theory of


Probability (New York: Anchor Books, 1963), 280; the story was origi-nally published in Life magazine (March 27, 1950).

32. Holland, “The Miraculous,” 157.33. Vaughan, Incredible Coincidence, 147.34. Holland, “The Miraculous,” 157.35. See Brian Inglis, The Unknown Guest: The Mystery of Intu-

ition (London: Chatto and Windus, 1987), 172–73, citing Guy LyonPlayfair, If This Be Magic (London: Jonathan Cape 1985).

36. See in chapter 2 the subsection “Some Differentiating Attributesof Spirit,” in which I speak, more specifically, of repatterning or restruc-turing contents within the fields of the psychic and physical.

37. See, for example, C. G. Jung, “Foreword to Suzuki’s ‘Introduc-tion to Zen Buddhism’” (1939), in Collected Works, vol. 11, Psychologyand Religion: West and East, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and KeganPaul, 1969), 545–48.

38. This idea has been explored at length by David Curtis, “The Syn-chronistic Continuum,” typewritten manuscript, February 1994, presentwriter’s personal collection.

39. Cited in F. W. Happold, Mysticism (Harmondsworth, UK: Pen-guin, 1970), 67.

40. Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom (London: Gol-lancz, 1954), 108.

41. Ibid.42. Alister Hardy, The Spiritual Nature of Man (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1979), 26, 143.43. On integration see, for example, C. G. Jung, “The Relations be-

tween the Ego and the Unconscious” (1928), in Collected Works, vol. 7,Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge andKegan Paul, 1966).

44. C. G. Jung, “Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen inthe Skies” (1958), in Collected Works, vol. 10, Civilization in Transition,2nd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), 409.

45. Ibid.46. C. G. Jung, Collected Works, vol. 14, Mysterium Coniunctio-

nis (1955–56) (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963), 464–65.47. Marie-Louise von Franz, Number and Time: Reflections Lead-

ing towards a Unification of Psychology and Physics, trans. AndreaDykes (London: Rider, 1974), 247; emphasis in original.

48. Wolfgang Pauli, “The Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the Sci-entific Theories of Kepler,” in C. G. Jung and W. Pauli, The Interpreta-tion of Nature and the Psyche, trans. R. F. C. Hull (London: Routledgeand Kegan Paul, 1955), 209–10; emphasis in original.


49. Cited in John Honner, The Description of Nature: Niels Bohrand the Philosophy of Quantum Physics (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1987), 186.

50. David Bohm, “A New Theory of the Relationship of Mind andMatter,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 80,no. 2 (April 1986): 129.

51. C. G. Jung, “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle”(1952), in Collected Works, vol. 8, The Structure and Dynamics of thePsyche, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 512.

52. Von Franz, Number and Time, 247.53. Macmillan Dictionary of Religion (1994), s.v. “Transcendence.”54. See Alister Hardy, Robert Harvie, and Arthur Koestler, The

Challenge of Chance: Experiments and Speculations (London: Hutchin-son, 1973), 157–204.

55. Stephen Jenkins, The Undiscovered Country (Sudbury, UK:Neville Spearman, 1976), 73.

56. St. Thomas Aquinas, Philosophical Texts, sel. and trans. byThomas Gilby (London: Oxford University Press, 1951), 117–18 (fromOpusc. XII, Compendium Theologiae, 137).

57. This inference to a transcendent level of operation resemblesand is compatible with the previously discussed inference to a level ofunity. Relative to the level of normal psychic and physical differentiation,any higher level activity might well appear unitary—without necessarilybeing so in any absolute sense.

58. Chambers Dictionary of Beliefs and Religions (1992), s.v. “Tran-scendence and immanence.”

59. Ibid. Of course, those more favorably disposed to pantheismwould not consider it to be degenerate.

60. Ibid.61. Ibid., s.v. “Providence.”62. John Polkinghorne suggests that highly significant coinci-

dences may fall into a borderline area between special providence andmiracles. See his Science and Theology: An Introduction (London:SPCK, 1998), 85.

63. Jenkins, The Undiscovered Country, 73.64. Ira Progoff, Jung, Synchronicity, and Human Destiny (New

York: Dell, 1973; repr., New York: Julian Press, 1987), 170–72.65. Ibid., 171.66. See, for example, Jean Shinoda Bolen, The Tao of Psychol-

ogy: Synchronicity and the Self (1979; repr., New York: Harper andRow, 1982), esp. chap. 5, “Significant Meetings and the SynchronisticMatchmaker.”


67. See, for example, Brian Inglis, Coincidence: A Matter ofChance—or Synchronicity? (London: Hutchinson, 1990), 33–41, subsec-tion titled “Providence.”

68. Chambers Dictionary of Beliefs and Religions, s.v. “Revelation.”69. This said, I do not discount the possibility that what appear

primarily or initially as “revelations” of importance only to one or a fewindividuals could also turn out to be of importance more collectively.

70. Note that the expression “essential form” is used here simply inthe sense explained and is not meant to carry Platonic, Aristotelian, orany other kind of extraneous philosophical overtones.

71. C. G. Jung, Collected Works, vol. 6, Psychological Types (1921)(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971), 474; emphasis in original.

72. Ibid., 475, 474.73. Avery Dulles, Models of Revelation (Dublin: Gill and Macmil-

lan, 1983), 132.74. Ibid., 143.75. Ibid., 136.76. Ibid.77. Ibid., 137.78. Ibid.79. Ibid., 136.80. Ibid., 1–128.81. Ibid., 131–53.82. Ibid., 131, 141.83. Ibid., 33.84. Ibid., 141–45.85. Ibid., 33.86. Ibid., 145.87. Examples of synchronicities that might be experienced as reve-

latory on a more collective scale are the kind of astrological coincidencesmentioned by Jung, such as that “between the life of Christ and the ob-jective astronomical event, the entrance of the spring equinox into thesign of Pisces.” See his Memories, Dreams, Reflections (London: Collins,1979), 248.

88. Dulles, Models of Revelation, 33.89. Ibid., 148.90. Ibid., 149.91. Ibid., 33.92. Ibid., 85.93. Ibid., 152.94. Ibid., 150.95. Ibid., 33.


96. Ibid., 153.97. Coincidence experiences have been explicitly viewed in this light

by Brian Cocksey, “Coincidence and Divine Revelation,” typewrittenmanuscript, March 1990, present writer’s personal collection.

CHAPTER 4:SYMBOL, MYTH, AND SYNCHRONICITY:

THE BIRTH OF ATHENA1. See, for example, Alister Hardy, Robert Harvie, and Arthur

Koestler, The Challenge of Chance: Experiments and Speculations (Lon-don: Hutchinson, 1973); Alan Vaughan, Incredible Coincidence: TheBaffling World of Synchronicity (New York: Harper and Row, 1979;repr., New York: Ballantine, 1989); and Brian Inglis, Coincidence:A Matter of Chance—or Synchronicity? (London: Hutchinson, 1990).

2. Edward Thornton, The Diary of a Mystic (London: GeorgeAllen and Unwin, 1967).

3. Ibid., 124.4. Ibid., 125.5. Ibid.6. Ibid.7. Ibid.8. Ibid.9. Ibid.

10. Ibid., 125–26.11. Ibid., 126.12. Thornton records this dream initially as having occurred on

May 9 (ibid.). Later, it transpires that it actually occurred in the earlyhours of May 10 (ibid., 132).

13. Ibid., 126. As Thornton mentions (ibid.), this dream was in-cluded in C. A. Meier, Ancient Incubation and Modern Psychotherapy,trans. Monica Curtis (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press,1967), 88–89, in which Thornton’s account says, more specifically, “anoperation is to be performed, I think by Jung” (emphasis added).

14. Thornton, The Diary of a Mystic, 126.15. Ibid.16. Ibid.17. Ibid., 127, quoting from Karl Kerényi, The Gods of the Greeks

(London: Thames and Hudson, 1951), 120. Matter in brackets is correc-tion of Thornton’s careless quoting. He has “hammer” for “a hammer,”“mortals” for “immortals,” “afraid of” for “afraid and astonished at,”and “out of the front of” for “in front of.”


18. Thornton, The Diary of a Mystic, 126.19. See C. G. Jung, Collected Works, vol. 14, Mysterium Coniunc-

tionis (1955–56) (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963).20. Thornton, The Diary of a Mystic, 127.21. Ibid., 128.22. Ibid., 128–29.23. Ibid., 129.24. Ibid.25. Ibid.26. Ibid.27. Ibid., 129–30.28. Ibid., 130.29. Ibid., 127.30. Ibid., 129–31.31. Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, trans. John W. Harvey,

2nd ed. (1917; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958), 16–17.32. Thornton, The Diary of a Mystic, 125.33. Ibid., 130.34. Ibid., 131.35. Ibid., 134. The bronze owl and the statue of Athena were ac-

counted for, he later discovered, by the fact that the Leeds coat of arms“consists of two large owls with a small one above them.”

36. Ibid.37. Ibid., 131.38. Ibid., 132.39. Ibid.40. Ibid.41. Ibid. The religious community was a Trappist order based in

Hertfordshire.42. Ibid., 133.43. Marie-Louise von Franz, On Divination and Synchronicity: The

Psychology of Meaningful Chance (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1980),105–8. Also see C. G. Jung, “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Prin-ciple” (1952), in Collected Works, vol. 8, The Structure and Dynamics ofthe Psyche, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 503–4;

44. Thornton, The Diary of a Mystic, 133. A further point, whichThornton himself does not explicitly relate to the theme of unity, is thatthe osteopath told him how once when she had doubts concerning herrole as a healer she dreamed that she saw written on a frieze the words:“Together we stand, divided you fall”—with the word “fall” underlinedvery thickly four times (ibid., 128). This suggests the importance of main-taining some kind of unitive contact with a higher dimension of reality, in


her case, with the “power . . . working through her” (ibid.). The theme ofunity and division is curiously evoked also, though in a different sense, bythe names of the first two doctors mentioned by Thornton: “Asked whichdoctor I would like, I insisted on Dr. Isaac Cainer whom I had not met, inpreference to Dr. Abel my mother’s doctor” (ibid., 129; emphasis added).In the light of this, note again the dream (10) involving Thornton’sbrother chopping him on the head with an axe (ibid., 126).

45. A closer examination of Thornton’s narrative might uncovereven more synchronistic events. I am focusing on the most salient, whichare sufficient for my purposes.

46. Ibid., 125.47. Ibid., 126.48. Ibid.49. Ibid.50. Ibid., 127.51. Ibid.52. Ibid., 129–30.53. Ibid., 130.54. Ibid., 125.55. Ibid., 126. This and the preceding event are not yet synchronis-

tic, but they do illustrate the pattern of Thornton’s thinking. My point isthat synchronicity can enhance the revelatory character of events, notthat synchronicity is a necessary condition of revelation.

56. Ibid., 127.57. Ibid., 130.58. Ibid.59. Ibid., 131.60. Ibid., 126, 133.61. Cf. the second of the three stages of the alchemical conjunction

as understood by Gerhard Dorn and discussed by Jung in Mysterium Co-niunctionis, 457–553. The first stage is the unio mentalis, a state of “inte-rior oneness . . . of equanimity transcending the body’s affectivity andinstinctuality” (ibid., 471). The second stage is “the re-uniting of the uniomentalis with the body” (ibid., 476). The third stage, the “complete con-junction,” is “union [of the individual] with the unus mundus” (ibid.).

62. Cf. the third of Dorn’s stages of alchemical conjunction (seepreceding note).

63. Thornton, The Diary of a Mystic, 133.64. Ibid., 130–31.65. See the review of statistical and psychological work in chapter 1

of this study.66. Thornton, The Diary of a Mystic, 130.


CHAPTER 5:MULTIPLE SYNCHRONICITIES OF A

CHESS GRANDMASTER

1. My work on this material was originally done between 1991and 1995. The experiencer himself subsequently published the material insubstantially the form in which I had seen it. See James Plaskett, Coinci-dences (Hastings, UK: Tamworth Press, 2000). In the following, I retainthe references to the actual manuscripts from which I worked.

2. The experiencer generally refers to his experiences as coinci-dences rather than as synchronicities. To avoid misrepresentation or con-fusion I too shall tend to use the word “coincidence” in this chapter,though in a sense that implies my usual understanding of synchronicity asoutlined in chapter 2.

3. I was put in touch with Plaskett through contacts in the field ofpsychical research, specifically through Dr. H. Breederveld who had beeninformed of my interest in synchronicity by Dr. John Beloff.

4. The questionnaire administered was the Gray-Wheelwright. SeeJoseph B. Wheelwright, Jane H. Wheelwright, and John A. Beuhler, Jun-gian Type Survey: The Grey-Wheelwright Test Manual, 16th rev. ed.(San Francisco: Society of Jungian Analysts of Northern California,1964). I am grateful to Adrian Cunningham for doing the scoring. Theactual results were as follows: introversion 24 (71 percent) as comparedto extraversion 10 (29 percent); thinking 12 (57 percent) as compared tofeeling 9 (43 percent); intuition 14 (54 percent) as compared to sensation12 (46 percent).

5. James Plaskett, revised presentation of coincidence narrative,typewritten manuscript, July 2, 1992, present writer’s personal collec-tion, 3, 41–44, 66–72, 84–86, 104–10, 126–28.

6. Ibid., 2–3, 52, 62, 73, and more.7. Ibid., 2.8. Ibid., 130.9. Ibid., 29.

10. Ibid., 39–41.11. Ibid., 26.12. Ibid., 3, 128.13. Ibid., 6, 8, 11–12.14. Ibid., 62.15. Ibid., 28.16. Ibid., 129.17. Ibid., 56.18. Ibid., 117.


19. Ibid., 129.20. Ibid.21. Ibid., 29.22. Ibid., 11. He does not specify exactly when he drew up and

began following this program, but it was probably in the mid-1980s.23. Ibid., 60.24. Ibid., 63.25. Ibid., 26–27, 17, 58. Plaskett mistakenly refers to Ian Wilson’s

book as “The Near-Death Experience.”26. Plaskett, revised presentation, 1, 39, 74.27. Ibid., 131.28. Ibid.29. The precise number of coincidences in the narrative is uncertain,

since it is debatable whether some incidents should be considered coinci-dences proper or just associative connections, and in other cases where aninitial event is paralleled by several subsequent events it is debatablewhether this should be counted as one coincidence with several aspects oras several independent coincidences. However, a precise count is not es-sential for any of my purposes; in general, when I invoke numbers, it issimply in order to draw attention to an impression of surprising quantity.

Plaskett also sent me substantial selections from his nonnarrative col-lection. “These examples,” he says, “are either directly concerned with themain text or I have included them just to give you an idea of the sundry co-incidences that form those lists” (James Plaskett to Roderick Main, auto-graphed letter signed, August 8, 1991, 5). For the sake of simplicity I haveleft these additional coincidences out of consideration (except occasionallywhen referring to the quantity of Plaskett’s material as a whole). The addi-tional coincidences are also gathered in Plaskett, Coincidences.

30. Plaskett, revised presentation, 86.31. Plaskett mentions that, before it came my way, he had shown

his material, at varying stages of preparation, to the parapsychologistsSusan Blackmore, Brian Inglis, and Dr. H. Breederveld, as well as to thewriter Colin Wilson and to a number of friends within the chess world,such as William Hartston (Plaskett to Main, 5).

32. Plaskett, revised presentation, 133.33. Plaskett to Main, 5.34. Ibid., 6.35. A coincidence has been assessed as expressing a particular

theme if the coincidence content is either the actual image being used todesignate the theme (for example, Dante’s Paradiso, sea monsters) or elseis strongly associated to the image designating the theme (for example,the eagle is strongly associated to Dante’s Paradiso, the idea of “coming


up for air” is strongly associated to the theme of sea monsters). Some ofthe theme titles are not actual contents themselves but phrases that ade-quately embrace a range of related themes (for example, celestial phe-nomena embraces moon, stars, and meteorites; Arthurian legendembraces Parsifal, the Holy Grail, and the Round Table).

36. The precise number depends on how much latitude of associa-tion one allows. See note 29.

37. Italicizing has been used to highlight the specific points of paral-leling involved in the coincidences, even within quoted material. No expla-nation of italicizing is given in individual cases unless there is the likelihoodof confusion arising. As Plaskett subsequently learned, Plaskett’s Craterwas so named after two Canadian astronomers, father and son. Plaskett’sStar, figuring in the next coincidence, was also named after them.

38. The map that gave rise to this belief in Plaskett appeared in TheTimes, March 19, 1960. He consulted this in order to read about thenewsworthy events of the previous day—the day of his birth.

39. Plaskett, revised presentation, 2, 10. When he checked further,he discovered that Plaskett’s Crater did not in fact receive its name untilten years after the publication of the first map of the far side of the moon.Nevertheless, the coincidence still seemed striking.

40. Ibid., 3.41. Ibid., 2–3.42. Ibid., 41, reproducing an extract from Arthur C. Clarke’s

World of Strange Powers (details of publication and page number(s) notgiven; emphasis in original); also Plaskett, revised presentation, 85–86.

43. Ibid., 64, reproducing Alister Hardy, Robert Harvie, andArthur Koestler, The Challenge of Chance: Experiments and Speculations(London: Hutchinson, 1973), 198; emphasis added by Plaskett.

44. Plaskett, revised presentation, 35, quoting van der Post’s “intro-duction to William Plomer’s novel Turbott Wolffe” [sic].

45. Plaskett, Revised presentation, 1, 3, 95–101.46. Ibid., 4–5.47. Ibid., 5–8.48. Ibid., 6.49. Ibid., 6–7.50. Ibid., 7.51. Ibid.52. Ibid., 5, reproducing The Caxton World of Knowledge, 1963

ed., s.v. “GRAIL”; italics in original.53. Plaskett, revised presentation, 11.54. Ibid., 12–13.55. Ibid., 14.


56. There is no indication that the sweater involved in the previouscoincidence was given to Plaskett because of the connection between theimage of the eagle and his former school.

57. Ibid., 14–15.58. Ibid., 16.59. Ibid., 16–17.60. Ibid., 17.61. Ibid., 85.62. Ibid. The eagle here, as on the coins in incident (12), is presum-

ably a symbol of the United States.63. Ibid., 17–23, reproducing Arthur C. Clarke, Chronicles of the

Strange and Mysterious (details of publication not given), 94–98.64. Plaskett, revised presentation, 25.65. Ibid., 29–32.66. Ibid., 32–33.67. Ibid., 33–34.68. Ibid., 34.69. Ibid., 36. Octopuses, of course, do not come up for air.70. Ibid., 37–38. The people responsible for the Greenpeace mail-

ing might also have been influenced by this approaching anniversary.71. Ibid. Plaskett writes that he accepted the offer.72. Ibid., 112–14.73. Ibid., 27.74. Ibid., 116, reproducing and quoting Colin Wilson, New Path-

ways in Psychology: Maslow and the Post-Freudian Revolution (1972;other details of publication and page number(s) not given); Wilson in turnis quoting (without visible reference in Plaskett) a work of Assagioli’s.

75. Plaskett, revised presentation, 27–28.76. Ibid., 55–56. Cryptomnesia suggests itself as a particularly

likely explanation for this apparent coincidence—the experiencer couldso easily have seen in a guide or newspaper that this episode was going tobe shown. However, while a theoretical possibility, there is nothing pos-itively to support this suggestion. A further association to the theme ofblindness, and one Plaskett himself does not specifically note, is that in alater canto of the Paradiso, Canto XXVI, a translation of which Plaskettreproduces in relation to another coincidence, Dante is depicted as hav-ing been temporarily blinded by the intensity of the love he encounters(see Plaskett, revised presentation, 24).

77. Ibid., 45–51. The (unreferenced) source Plaskett reproduces(ibid., 50) seems to equate the originally probably distinct symbols of theeye in the triangle and the third eye—a common conflation in twentieth-century eclectic esotericism.


78. Ibid., 54–55.79. Ibid., 60, 63.80. Ibid., 61.81. Ibid., 60. This incident belongs thematically in the subsection

entitled “Sea Monsters” but has been included here because of its closerelationship to the preceding incident. One can glimpse from this some-thing of the tight interconnectedness between the themes—a point towhich I shall draw specific attention later.

82. Ibid., 62.83. Ibid., 63. Out of context, this also seems rather unimpressive,

especially since, as Plaskett mentions, it was something that had hap-pened before (ibid.).

84. Ibid., 66. This was a piece of junk mail, to be sure, and thereis probably nothing too remarkable about Plaskett’s name and addresshaving found their way onto a database of potential subscribers; but thetiming of the offer’s arrival is nonetheless quite impressive.

85. Ibid., 65.86. Ibid., 52.87. Ibid., 51.88. Ibid.89. Ibid.90. Ibid.91. Ibid., 1.92. Ibid.93. Ibid., 39.94. Ibid., 17.95. Ibid., 132.96. Ibid., 5.97. Ibid., 16.98. Ibid., 40–41.99. Ibid., 74.

100. Ibid., 128.101. Ibid., 6.102. Ibid., 8.103. Ibid., 83.104. Ibid., 82.105. Ibid., 8.106. Ibid., 11; see also ibid., 51.107. Ibid., 73.108. Ibid., 35.109. Ibid.; see note 44.110. Ibid.


111. Ibid., 133.112. Ibid., 73, 77.113. Ibid., 28.114. Ibid., 101–2.115. Ibid., 129.116. Ibid., 49.117. Ibid., 115–25.118. Ibid., 28.119. Ibid., 39–40.120. Ibid., 40.121. Ibid., 66–70, 70–72.122. Ibid., 131.123. Ibid., 132.124. Ibid., 41–44.125. Ibid., 84.126. Ibid., 58–59.127. Ibid., 126–28.128. Ibid., 41, reproducing an extract from Arthur C. Clarke’s

World of Strange Powers (details of publication and page number(s) notgiven); emphasis in original.

129. Plaskett, revised presentation, 85–86, 88–89.130. These parallels between the cases of meteorites and of coinci-

dences were made more explicit to me in personal communications withPlaskett.

131. Ibid., 61, reproducing Laurens van der Post, The Heart of theHunter (details of publication not given), 182–83.

132. Plaskett, revised presentation, 67–70.133. Ibid., 104.134. Ibid., 109.135. Ibid., 83, 70–72.136. Ibid., 74.137. Ibid., 75.138. Ibid. For a brief discussion of the Gauquelins’s work and the

ensuing scandal, see Brian Inglis, Coincidence: A Matter of Chance—orSynchronicity? (London: Hutchinson, 1990), 142–47.

139. Plaskett, revised presentation, 80.140. Ibid., 75.141. Ibid.142. Ibid., 76.143. As Plaskett explains: “The title of Grandmaster (GM) is the

highest and most prestigious in the game (apart from World Champion ofcourse). It is achieved by a player acquiring at least two and sometimes


three GM norms. A GM norm is achieved by a player who scores a cer-tain % of points in an event where at least three Grandmasters are par-ticipating” (ibid., 77).

144. Ibid.145. Ibid.146. Ibid.147. Ibid. There may be a slight confusion here either in the math

or in Plaskett’s reporting: surely the margin would have been narrower ifnot “each of the competitors” but only some or one of them had beenrated just one point higher. But the point can be taken nonetheless.

148. Ibid. These personal details were widely reported in the pressat the time; there is no suggestion in Plaskett’s account that he feels he isbeing indiscreet in mentioning them.

149. Ibid.150. This last detail is included only in James Plaskett, earlier pre-

sentation of coincidence narrative, typewritten manuscript, August 8,1991, present writer’s personal collection, 77.

151. Plaskett, revised presentation, 77.152. Ibid.153. Ibid., 78.154. Ibid.155. Ibid.156. Ibid., reproducing Stan Gooch, The Paranormal (London:

Fontana, 1979), 149.157. Plaskett, revised presentation, 78.158. Ibid., 80.159. Ibid.160. Ibid.161. Ibid.162. Ibid., 81(a). Unusually, Plaskett used the verso of page 81,

numbering it 81(a).163. Ibid., 82. The expression “the limits of intelligence [or knowl-

edge]” is itself probably not all that uncommon; thus, the impressivenessof the present coincidence depends very much on the accurate timing andon the fact that it was precisely Hartston who here used the expression.

164. Ibid.165. Ibid. I understand Plaskett to mean by this not that we project

subjective meaning onto a world that is objectively meaningless, but thatour subjectivity can participate with the world in the creation of a di-mension of meaning that is an objective feature of the world—a worldfrom which we ourselves are not ultimately separable.

166. Ibid., 80.


167. Plaskett told me in 1993 that by then Hartston’s position re-garding coincidences had, in spite of his experiences and admission relat-ing to them, reverted to one of skepticism—publicly at least.

CHAPTER 6:THE SELF-REVELATION OF

SYNCHRONICITY AS SPIRIT:A MODERN GRAIL STORY

1. When Plaskett did eventually self-publish his material, he didnot greatly revise it. See his Coincidences (Hastings, UK: TamworthPress, 2000).

2. I am referring here to Plaskett’s revised narrative rather thanto the selection of forty-odd incidents presented in the previous chapteror to his collection as a whole that may comprise some six hundred or soincidents.

3. All numbers in this chapter refer to Plaskett’s experiences as related in the previous chapter.

4. This kind of coincidence has received attention from AlanVaughan, Incredible Coincidence: The Baffling World of Synchronicity(New York: Harper and Row, 1979; repr., New York: Ballantine, 1989),23, who referred to them as “The Synchronicity of Synchronicity”; aswell as from Ivor Grattan-Guinness, “Coincidences as Spontaneous Psychical Phenomena,” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 52,no. 793 (February 1983): 60.

5. Cf. my loosening of Jung’s definitions of synchronicity inchapter 2 of this study.

6. James Plaskett, revised presentation of coincidence narrative,typewritten manuscript, July 2, 1992, present writer’s personal collec-tion, 104.

7. Ibid., 132.8. See the works in statistics and mainstream psychology briefly

surveyed in chapter 1. See also Roderick Main, The Rupture of Time:Synchronicity and Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture (Hove,UK: Brunner-Routledge, 2004), 27–35.

9. Others, however, I found rather tenuous, such as the ones in-volving the image of the bird of prey on the sweater (13) or the lensfalling out of Plaskett’s glasses (37).

10. If one takes into consideration not just conspicuous but alsosubtler associative connections, the web of interrelatedness becomes pro-gressively more entangled.


11. The theme of celestial phenomena is connected because theimage of the rose is suggested by the Rosette nebula; the theme of seamonsters is implicit because it provides the overall context for the inci-dent and, more particularly, because of the incident’s essential relation tothe coincidence immediately following (30).

12. Plaskett, revised presentation, 1.13. That is, from Plaskett’s narrative as a whole, not just from my

selection presented in the previous chapter.14. See, for example, C. G. Jung, Collected Works, vol. 12, Psychol-

ogy and Alchemy (1944), 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,1968); The Visions Seminars, from the complete notes of Mary Foote, post-script by Henry A. Murray, 2 vols. (Zürich: Spring Publications, 1976); andDream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928–1930, ed. WilliamMcGuire (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984). Also see GerhardAdler, The Living Symbol (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961).

15. On the importance of this, see, for example, Marie-Louise vonFranz, Introduction to the Interpretation of Fairy Tales (Dallas, TX:Spring Publications, 1982), 7–8.

16. Jung, Collected Works, vol. 12, Psychology and Alchemy, 43.17. Ibid., 44.18. Ibid., 45.19. Ibid., 45–46; emphases in original.20. The importance of each of these themes within his material was

registered by Plaskett, but he was much less systematic than I hope tohave been in tracing their pervasiveness, interrelationships, and subtlerimplications.

21. Plaskett, revised presentation, 131.22. Attention has also been drawn to this potentiality of syn-

chronicities by Allan Combs and Mark Holland. See their Synchronicity:Science, Myth, and the Trickster (New York: Paragon House, 1990;repr., Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1994), 73.

23. Plaskett, revised presentation, 116, citing Colin Wilson who inturn is citing Assagioli (see note 74 in the preceding chapter); emphasisadded.

24. Plaskett, revised presentation, 28, reproducing Assagioli (with-out reference).

25. Plaskett, revised presentation, 37, reproducing a letter fromGreenpeace dated March 1988.

26. Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God, vol. 4, CreativeMythology (London: Souvenir Press, 1974), 544, quoting the Questedel Saint Graal.


27. See coincidence (31) in chapter 5 and its note.28. Cf. the notion of the spiraculum aeternitatis (airhole into eter-

nity) or spiraculum vitae aeternae (airhole to eternal life) of the alchemistGerhard Dorn, which is specifically related to synchronicity by Marie-Louise von Franz in her Number and Time: Reflections Leading towardsa Unification of Psychology and Physics, trans. Andrea Dykes (London:Rider, 1974), 261.

29. It is, however, possible for a coincidence to be registered be-tween events that do not have points of identity, either obvious or sym-bolic. As Robert Aziz has pointed out, the coinciding events can stand toone another in a relation of compensation. See his C. G. Jung’s Psychol-ogy of Religion and Synchronicity (Albany: State University of New YorkPress, 1990), 59–67, 84–90.

30. See chapter 3, the sections on “Transformation” and “Unity.”31. See in this chapter, the section on “Transformation” above.32. This summary of the legend is based on Emma Jung and Marie-

Louise von Franz, The Grail Legend (London: Hodder and Stoughton,1972).

33. Plaskett, revised presentation, 2–3, 132.34. Ibid., 5.35. Quoted in Jung and von Franz, The Grail Legend, 162.36. Ibid.37. Ibid., 161.38. Ibid., 19.39. Ibid., 342.40. Ibid.41. Ibid., 342–43.42. Ibid., 343.43. Ibid., 389.44. Plaskett, revised presentation, 6.45. See, for example, Jung and von Franz, The Grail Legend, 118–19,

122, 123.46. Plaskett, revised presentation, 131.47. Jung and von Franz, The Grail Legend, 140–41.48. Plaskett, revised presentation, 132.49. Jung and von Franz, The Grail Legend, 97; emphasis in original.50. Plaskett, revised presentation, 86.51. Quoted in Jung and von Franz, The Grail Legend, 148.52. Or at least there was dispute at the time Jung and von Franz

were writing (the original German edition was published in 1960).53. See, for example, Jung and von Franz, The Grail Legend, 149.


54. Ibid., 148.55. Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God, 429, quoting Wolfram

von Eschenbach, Parzival, IX 454:17–25.56. Jung and von Franz, The Grail Legend, 151.57. Ibid., 97.58. Plaskett, revised presentation, 132.

CHAPTER 7: SYNCHRONICITYAND SPIRIT IN THE I CHING

1. See C. G. Jung, “Richard Wilhelm: In Memoriam” (1930), inCollected Works, vol. 15, The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature (Lon-don: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), 56; and “Foreword to the ‘IChing’” (1950), in Collected Works, vol. 11, Psychology and Religion:West and East, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969),591–93. See also Roderick Main, The Rupture of Time: Synchronicityand Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture (Hove, UK: Brunner-Routledge, 2004), 77–79.

2. Jung, “Richard Wilhelm,” 55.3. In particular, these three aspects of the spiritual, physical, and

psychic would be articulated as heaven, earth, and man. See Richard Wil-helm, trans., The I Ching or Book of Changes, rendered into English byCary F. Baynes, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968 [here-after cited as Wilhelm–Baynes]), 351–52.

4. Note that the component three-line figures (trigrams) withinthe hexagrams are also called “kua.” (Transcriptions from the Chineseare in the Wade-Giles rather than the Pinyin system—thus, for example,“kua” and not “gua.” On the rare occasions when Pinyin phrases occurin quoted matter, the Wade-Giles equivalent is given in brackets.)

5. Unless otherwise stated, all translations of terms used in the IChing are from Wilhelm–Baynes.

6. For a summary of this, see, for example, Wilhelm–Baynes,lviii–lix.

7. See ibid., lviii.8. See Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 2

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), 306; also see HellmutWilhelm, “Preface to the Third Edition,” in Wilhelm–Baynes, xiv–xvi.

9. Iulian K. Shchutskii, Researches on the I Ching (Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 1979), 195.

10. Ibid., 197.11. See, for example, Needham, Science and Civilization in China,

306–7; Hellmut Wilhelm in Wilhelm–Baynes; Greg Whincup, Rediscover-


ing the I Ching (Wellingborough, UK: Aquarian Press, 1987). Much of thisagreement constitutes independent corroboration, since Shchutskii’s workwas suppressed by the then Soviet authorities, only appearing in Russian in1960 and in English translation in 1979; Shchutskii himself had met anearly death in the 1930s in a Soviet prison camp; see his Researches on theI Ching, ix.

12. Joseph Adler, “Divination and Philosophy: Chu Hsi’s Under-standing of the I Ching” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa Bar-bara, 1984), 41–42.

13. Ibid., 42–45. Unless otherwise referenced, the following histor-ical sketch is based on ibid., 45–57.

14. Wilhelm–Baynes, xlvii, lx.15. See especially Richard John Lynn, trans., The Classic of

Changes: A New Translation of the “I Ching” as Interpreted by Wang Bi(New York: Columbia University Press, 1994).

16. See Da Liu, I Ching Numerology (London: Routledge andKegan Paul, 1979).

17. Joseph Adler, “Divination and Philosophy,” 47.18. See the diagrams in, for example, Diana ffarington Hook, The

I Ching and You (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974), 83.19. Joseph Adler, “Divination and Philosophy,” 42.20. See ibid., 135–267.21. Richard Smith, Fortune-tellers and Philosophers: Divination in

Traditional Chinese Society (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 94.22. Gerald W. Swanson, “Introduction to the English Edition,” in

Researches on the I Ching, by Iulian K. Shchutskii, (Princeton, NJ: Prince-ton University Press, 1979) xxxviii.

23. Marie-Louise von Franz, Number and Time: Reflections Lead-ing towards a Unification of Psychology and Physics, trans. AndreaDykes (London: Rider, 1974), 10.

24. Hellmut Wilhelm, Change: Eight Lectures on the I Ching (Lon-don: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961), 91.

25. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, 342.26. James Legge, trans., “The Yi King,” in The Sacred Books of the

East, vol. 16, ed. Max Müller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882; repr.Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1966).

27. C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (London: Collins,1979), 405; and “Richard Wilhelm,” 54.

28. The Wilhelm–Baynes I Ching “continue[s] to this day as thebest selling book ever published by the Princeton University Press”(Willard Peterson, “Some Connective Concepts in China in the Fourth toSecond Centuries B.C.E.,” Eranos 57 [1988]: 234).


29. Important Western work along some of these lines has beencarried out by Arthur Waley (see Needham, Science and Civilisation inChina, 308–9 and the references cited there); Shchutskii, Researches onthe I Ching; Hellmut Wilhelm, Change, and Heaven, Earth, and Man inthe Book of Changes (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977);Gerald Swanson, The Great Treatise: Commentary Tradition to theBook of Changes (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1974);Willard J. Peterson, “Making Connections: ‘Commentary on the At-tached Verbalizations’ of the Book of Change,” Harvard Journal ofAsian Studies 42, no. 1 (1982): 67–116, and “Some Connective Con-cepts in China;” Edward Shaughnessey, The Composition of the“Zhouyi” (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International, 1983);and Richard Kunst, The Original “Yijing”: A Text, Phonetic Transcrip-tion, Translation, and Indexes, with Sample Glosses (Ann Arbor, MI:University Microfilms International, 1985).

30. Rudolf Ritsema and Stephen Karcher, I Ching: The ClassicChinese Oracle of Change (Shaftesbury, UK: Element, 1994). The samework was also serially published, with an alternative title, as Chou Yi:The Oracle of Encompassing Versatility, 3 vols., Eranos 58–60(1989–91). For a fuller evaluation of this translation, see Roderick Main,“Review of I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change,” by RudolfRitsema and Stephen Karcher, in Journal of the Society for Psychical Re-search 60, no. 839 (April 1995): 278–81; also see Main’s “Magic and Sci-ence in the Modern Western Tradition of the I Ching,” Journal ofContemporary Religion 14, no. 2 (1999): 263–75. Karcher has also pub-lished individual translations, extending his original collaborative workwith Ritsema. See, for example, Karcher’s Total I Ching: Myths forChange (London: TimeWarner Books, 2003).

31. See, for example, Hook, The I Ching and You, 11–12; also seeRudolf Ritsema, “The Great’s Vigour: A Study of the 34th Hexagram inthe I Ching, with a Note on Consulting the I Ching,” Spring (1978): 183.

32. See, for example, Wilhelm–Baynes, 349; also see Hellmut Wil-helm, “The Concept of Time in the Book of Changes,” in Papers from theEranos Yearbooks, vol. 3, Man and Time, ed. Joseph Campbell (NewYork: Bollingen, 1957), 220–21.

33. See Ritsema, “The Great’s Vigour,” 184.34. For details of the procedures involved see Wilhelm–Baynes,

721–24.35. It was largely the different emphases given to these two aspects of

the system that distinguished the i-li and the hsiang-shu schools of interpre-tation mentioned in the historical sketch above.


36. Gerhard Adler, “Reflections on ‘Chance’ and ‘Fate,’” in TheShaman from Elko: Papers in Honor of Joseph L. Henderson, ed. GarthHill (Boston: Sigo Press, 1991), 94.

37. Ibid.38. Ibid., citing Wilhelm–Baynes, 171.39. Ibid., 94–95, citing Wilhelm–Baynes, 609.40. Ibid., 95.41. Wilhelm–Baynes, 608–9.42. Shchutskii, Researches on the I Ching, 195, 197.43. Hellmut Wilhelm, Change, 38.44. Wilhelm–Baynes, 291.45. Ibid., 288.46. Shchutskii, Researches on the I Ching, 226.47. In the not uncommon event of there being more than one mov-

ing line, there are special rules that can be followed for determining towhich aspects of one’s reading one should then give most attention. SeeW. A. Sherrill and W. K. Chu, An Anthology of I Ching (London:Arkana, 1989), 27–28.

48. See, for example, F. M. Doeringer, “Oracle and Symbol in theRedaction of the I Ching,” Philosophy East and West 30, no. 2 (April1980): 195–209.

49. Wilhelm–Baynes, 370.50. Ibid., 372.51. Hellmut Wilhelm, “Preface to the Third Edition,” in ibid.,

xviii. Because of this independence, the Wilhelm–Baynes presentation ofthe I Ching gives the section titled “The Image” a status equal to thatgiven to the precommentary texts of the Judgment and the Lines.

52. Ibid., xviii.53. Ibid., 345.54. Ritsema and Karcher, I Ching, 16.55. Rudolf Ritsema, “The Corrupted: A Study of the 18th Hexa-

gram of the I Ching,” Spring (1972): 90–91. See also Hellmut Wilhelm,Heaven, 190–221.

56. Ritsema, “The Corrupted,” 91.57. Smith, Fortune-Tellers and Philosophers, 121.58. This summary is based primarily on Wilhelm–Baynes and Shchut-

skii, Researches on the I Ching.59. See the Shuo Kua, Discussion of the Trigrams, in Wilhelm–

Baynes, 262–279.60. Ibid., 351–52; see also Richard Wilhelm, Lectures on the I Ching:

Constancy and Change (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), 27.


61. Shchutskii, Researches on the I Ching, 226.62. Ibid., 227.63. See the earlier section on “Historical Background.”64. Wilhelm–Baynes, 322.65. See Hellmut Wilhelm, Change, 23–34.66. Wilhelm–Baynes, 168.67. Ibid., 606.68. Ibid., 168.69. Ibid., 275.70. Ibid., 606.71. Ibid.72. Ibid.73. Ibid., 279.74. Ibid., 606.75. It occurs in the Judgment texts of Hexagrams 5, 6, 13, 18, 26,

42, 59, and 61, and in the Lines texts of Hexagrams 15 (line 1), 27 (lines5 and 6), and 64 (line 3).

76. See Wilhelm–Baynes, Book III, commentaries to each of thehexagrams mentioned in the preceding note.

77. Wayne McEvilly, exploring the relationship between syn-chronicity and the I Ching primarily from a Western philosophical per-spective, has also emphasized the archetypal nature of the hexagrams. Hisunderstanding of the archetype is, however, essentially Platonic and hedoes not seriously engage with possible differences between the Platonicconception and Jung’s. See his “Synchronicity and the I Ching,” Philoso-phy East and West 18, no. 3 (1968): 146: “[The] structural aspects of theI Ching may conveniently be understood, without doing a great deal of vi-olence to the system, as a highly articulated and specified working out ofa Platonic type of metaphysic”; again: “The I Ching stands as . . . the mostimpressive working out of the principle of synchronicity as the clue to themeaningful interaction of the world of phenomena with that unseen worldof guiding universal archetypes” (ibid., 148).

78. See the section on “Oracular and Spontaneous SynchronicitiesCompared” later in the chapter.

79. Adrian Cunningham, “Structure in Jung and Lévi-Strauss,” inTraditions in Contact and Change: Selected Proceedings of the XIVthCongress of the International Association for the History of Religions,ed. Peter Slater and Donald Wiebe, with Maurice Boutin and HaroldCoward (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1983),632–33.

80. See, for example, Wilhelm–Baynes, 273, 275.


81. Ibid., 136.82. Ibid., 52.83. Ibid., 262–3.84. Ritsema and Karcher, I Ching, 11.85. Jung, “Foreword to the ‘I Ching,’” 592.86. Wilhelm–Baynes, 359.87. Hellmut Wilhelm, “The Concept of Time,” 223. See also

Stephen Karcher, “Making Spirits Bright: Divination and the DemonicImage,” Eranos 61 (1992): 27–29.

88. Wilhelm–Baynes, 237.89. Ibid.90. Ibid., 237–38; also contained in the Great Treatise, ibid., 305.91. Audrey Josephs, “Karman, Self-Knowledge and I Ching Div-

ination,” Philosophy East and West 30, no. 1 (January 1980): 70.92. It should be noted, however, that the Chinese text contains here

no equivalent to the English connective “thus”—which has presumablybeen added by Wilhelm–Baynes to make the implicit relationship betweenthe Image statements clearer.

93. Shchutskii, Researches on the I Ching, 169.94. Wilhelm–Baynes, 382.95. Ibid., 314.96. Peterson, “Making Connections,” 85. The realm of “heaven-

and-earth” refers to “the physical cosmos as a whole” (ibid., 84). Peter-son distinguishes four major claims in the Great Treatise, the other threeof which are “that cosmological processes are intelligible and humans canadjust their conduct on the basis of that intelligence” (ibid., 91); that “wecan know by means of the words of the Change, and we can be guided bytheir counsel” (ibid., 94); and “that by being numinous, the Change is themedium giving us access to all that is numinous” (ibid., 110). The last ofthese claims will prove especially important when I come to discuss spiritin the I Ching.

97. Ibid., 89. Cf. Wilhelm–Baynes, 351–52; also Lynn, The Clas-sic of Changes, 92.

98. Peterson, “Making Connections,” 90. Cf. Wilhelm–Baynes,302; also Lynn, The Classic of Changes, 56.

99. For the second of these, both Wilhelm–Baynes and Lynn use“corresponds.”

100. Peterson, “Making Connections,” 91.101. Ibid.102. Peterson, “Some Connective Concepts,” 225.103. See following paragraph.


104. According to some commentators, the lower trigram repre-sents oneself (or the consulting party) in the situation, while the upper tri-gram represents the other (or the opposite party). See, for example,Smith, Fortune-tellers and Philosophers, 101.

105. Of course, correspondence is considered to exist only whenthe relevant lines are opposite in nature—one yin, one yang—whereaswith the kind of noncontiguous paralleling characteristic of spontaneoussynchronistic events it is generally the case that the more similar the re-lated events are, the stronger the impression of synchronicity. However,it is also possible to view the two events composing a spontaneous syn-chronicity as complementary aspects of a single whole—in Jung’s theory,for example, as the psychic and physical aspects of a meaning that at thelevel of the psychoid is unitary.

106. Wilhelm–Baynes, 357.107. Ibid., 349.108. Ibid.; emphasis added. The words translated “cause and

effect” are more literally translated by Lynn as “roots and branches”(The Classic of Changes, 90–91).

109. See Hellmut Wilhelm, Heaven, 116.110. See C. G. Jung, Collected Works, vol. 6, Psychological Types

(1921), (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971), 425–27. Though theword “enantiodromia” is Greek—first occurring in the context of thephilosophy of Heraclitus—it expresses the same idea as the famous Chi-nese t’ai chi symbol: namely, the idea that any manifestation of a bipolarphenomenon always contains the seed of its own opposite.

111. Wilhelm–Baynes, 350.112. See, for example, chapter 2, note 37.113. Jung, “Foreword to the ‘I Ching,’” 591.114. Ibid., liii.115. See C. G. Jung, “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Prin-

ciple” (1952), in Collected Works, vol. 8, The Structure and Dynamics ofthe Psyche, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 450–53;and “Foreword to the ‘I Ching,’” 590–94. Also see Marie-Louise vonFranz, On Divination and Synchronicity: The Psychology of MeaningfulChance (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1980), 8–12.

116. Jung, “Foreword to the ‘I Ching,’” 591.117. Ibid., 593.118. Ibid., 591.119. Peterson, “Some Connective Concepts,” 216–17.120. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, 279–91.121. He mentions especially Marcel Granet (ibid., 280). See Mar-

cel Granet, La Pensée Chinoise (Paris: Albin Michel, 1950).


122. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, 280–81.123. Ibid., 283.124. Ibid., 286–87.125. Ibid., 284–86.126. See Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, How Natives Think [Les Fonctions

mentales dans les sociétés inférieures], trans. Lilian A. Clare (Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985). Origionally published in Paris in1910.

127. For an example of how all these systems of categorization canbe unified, see Ritsema and Karcher, I Ching, 65–83.

128. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, 284.129. Ibid., 286.130. Jung, “Synchronicity,” 485.131. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, 302.132. Ibid., 291.133. Benjamin I. Schwarz, The World of Thought in Ancient China

(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1985), 370.134. Ibid., 371.135. See, for example, C. G. Jung, “A Letter on Parapsychology and

Synchronicity: Dr. Jung’s Response to an Inquiry,” Spring (1961): 56.136. Cf. McEvilly, “Synchronicity and the I Ching,” 143: “If [these

4,096 possible situations] are indeed sufficiently archetypal it does notstretch the imagination to acknowledge that they would cover rather welleach, any, and every phenomenon that might conceivably be experienced,no matter how seemingly unique.”

137. C. G. Jung, “The Concept of the Collective Unconscious”(1936), in Collected Works, vol. 9i, The Archetypes and the CollectiveUnconscious, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), 48.

138. C. G. Jung, “Instinct and the Unconscious” (1919), in Col-lected Works, vol. 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 2nd ed.(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 135. It is, in fact, not en-tirely clear that Jung is saying he himself subscribes to this “theory ofcognition.”

139. It might seem that 4,096 is an unmanageable number, but itappears less so if it is considered to be built up from the combination ofa much more discrete range of elements (for example, 642 hexagramcombinations, or even 84 trigram combinations).

140. Some of the specific nuances of the Chinese word shen are dis-cussed below.

141. Schwarz, The World of Thought in Ancient China, 369.142. Hellmut Wilhelm, “The Concept of Time in the Book of

Changes,” 219.


143. Jung, “Synchronicity,” 451.144. Jung, “Foreword to the ‘I Ching,’” 590.145. Ibid., 607.146. David Ruelle, Chance and Chaos (London: Penguin, 1993), 36.147. Ibid., 37.148. Ibid., 90.149. Lawrence Rubin and Charles Honorton, “Separating the Yins

from the Yangs: An Experiment with the I Ching,” Journal of Parapsy-chology 35 (1971): 313–14.

150. Michael A. Thalbourne et al., “A Further Attempt to Separatethe Yins from the Yangs: A Replication of the Rubin–Honorton Experimentwith the I CHING,” European Journal of Parapsychology 9 (1992–93): 17.

151. Jung, “Foreword to the ‘I Ching,’” 594.152. Wilhelm–Baynes, 262; bracketed insertion mine.153. Jung, “Foreword to the ‘I Ching,’” 593–94.154. Lynn, The Classic of Changes, 1–2; see also 18. Hereafter

cited as Lynn followed by pages(s).155. Peterson, “Making Connections,” 103.156. Ibid., 104.157. Ibid.158. Wilhelm–Baynes, 301; cf. Lynn, 54. In Wilhelm–Baynes, shen

is variously rendered as “spirit,” “the divine,” “mind,” “gods,” and soforth. In Lynn, the usual translation is “the numinous,” though he toosometimes uses “gods” when it is clear that it is a question of agencies.

159. Wilhelm–Baynes, 296; cf. Lynn, 53.160. Wilhelm–Baynes, 316; cf. Lynn, 63.161. Wilhelm–Baynes, 338; cf. Lynn, 82.162. Wilhelm–Baynes, 318; cf. Lynn, 65.163. Lynn, 81–82. In Wilhelm–Baynes this passage appears as:

“Thus the penetration of a germinal thought into the mind promotes theworking of the mind” (338).

164. Wilhelm–Baynes, 320; cf. Lynn, 66.165. Wilhelm–Baynes, 315; cf. Lynn, 63.166. Wilhelm–Baynes, 313; cf. Lynn, 62.167. Wilhelm–Baynes, 317; cf. Lynn, 65.168. Wilhelm–Baynes, 316; cf. Lynn, 64.169. Lynn’s translations, 64, 65, 67. In Wilhelm–Baynes “the

sages” are made the subject of all three of these passages with no directreference to the oracle (317, 322).

170. Stephen Karcher, “Which Way I Fly Is Hell: Divination andthe Shadow of the West,” Spring 55 (1994): 95.


171. Ritsema and Karcher, I Ching, 8.172. Ibid.; emphasis in original.173. Ibid., 14.174. Karcher, “Which Way I Fly Is Hell,” 96.175. Stephen Karcher, “The Yi Ching and the Ethic of the Image:

Reflections at the 1992 Eranos/Uehiro Round Table Session,” Eranos 62(1992): 101.

176. Ritsema and Karcher, I Ching, 8; emphasis added.177. Ibid., 9.178. Karcher, “Which Way I Fly Is Hell,” 91.179. Stephen Karcher, “Oracle’s Contexts: Gods, Dreams,

Shadow, Language,” Spring 53 (1992): 87, citing C. G. Jung, “A Reviewof the Complex Theory” (1934), in Collected Works, vol. 8, The Struc-ture and Dynamics of the Psyche, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and KeganPaul, 1969), 101.

180. Rudolf Ritsema, “Encompassing Versatility: Keystone of theEranos Project,” Eranos 57 (1988): xv.

181. See, for example, Adler, “Divination and Philosophy,” 24:“Contrary to Kant, says [the contemporary Chinese philosopher] Mou[Tsung san], Chinese thinkers of all schools have consistently claimed thatthe human mind is capable of ‘intellectual intuition’ . . . , i.e. it is capableof directly apprehending absolute truth (principle).”

182. Peterson, “Making Connections,” 105–6. The realms of“heaven-and-earth” and “all-under-heaven” (see next quote) refer to“the physical cosmos as a whole” and “human society,” respectively (seeibid., 84–85).

183. For example, ibid., 106, citing section A10.17 of the GreatTreatise in Peterson’s numbering; see also Wilhelm–Baynes, 315; andLynn, 63.

184. Peterson, “Making Connections,” 106.185. Ibid., 107.186. Ibid., 110.187. Ibid., 85.188. Peterson, “Some Connective Concepts,” 230.189. Ibid., 234.190. Jung, “Foreword to the ‘I Ching,’” 594.191. Ibid.192. Ibid.193. Ibid., 595.194. Jung, “Foreword to the ‘I Ching,’” 594.195. Ritsema and Karcher, I Ching, 33–34.


196. Ibid., 34.197. Ibid.198. Ibid., 35. Since the Ritsema and Karcher translation did not exist

in the late 1960s, we can assume that the experiencer’s actual interpreta-tions and responses were based on readings of such versions as did thenexist, these versions being sufficiently similar to Ritsema and Karcher’s tojustify the anachronism here.

199. Lynn, 451.200. Of course, consciously or otherwise, Ritsema and Karcher

could have been influenced in their choice of example by Jung’s earlier ex-perience. But this does not detract from the fact that, in response to a sim-ilar request for self-characterization, the same hexagram was obtained.


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References 245

yanulada


acausality, 5, 15, 139, 167, 168, 173,199n37; absolute, 21, 23; acausalconnecting principle, 14; miraclesand, 45, 58; relative, 20–21, 29,45. See also causality; correlativethinking; paralleling: acausal par-allelism; paralleling: meaningfulacausal

Adler, Gerhard: on significance of IChing, 141, 142; experience ofconsulting I Ching, 148–50, 156,161; The Living Symbol, 220n14

Adler, Joseph, 144, 231n181Aesculapius, 66; hymn to, 66, 71Agrippa of Nettesheim, 171alchemy, 134, 137, 171amplification, 19, 58, 124, 132, 145analysis: causal, 21; of I Ching hexa-

grams, 158–59; Jungian, 64;nonpsychological, 147; Otto’s, ofnuminosity, 40; of products ofthe imagination, 10; rational, 43;symbolic, 119, 120, 121, 175; ofsynchronicity, 16, 58, 110,121–22, 132. See also interpreta-tion

analytical psychology. See Jungian (oranalytical) psychology

Aquinas, Saint Thomas. See ThomasAquinas, Saint

archetypes, 13, 15, 22, 35; archetypalimage, 34; archetypal patterning;

19; basis of synchronicity,176–77; cosmic, 60; hexagramsand, 160, 226n77; immanent intheir images, 203n99; number of,177; numinosity of, 15, 16; of rebirth, 16, 176; as such, 34; astranspersonal objects of experi-ence, 36

Arthur, King, 90, 91, 134, 135, 136Arthurian legend, 84, 99, 126, 130,

132; political dimension of, 136;synchronicities analyzed in depth,120, 132–40; as theme of syn-chronicities, 87, 88, 89–91, 94,118, 129, 132, 133, 213–14n35.See also Parsifal; Grail; RoundTable

Assagioli, Roberto, 83, 95, 96, 117,118, 125, 130

astrology, 82, 83, 105, 171, 208n87Athena: attributes of, 73, 78; birth of,

63, 67, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78; fig-urines of, 71, 75, 78; owl sacredto, 65, 73, 78; statue on LeedsCity Hall, 70, 77, 210n35; sym-bol of divine wisdom, 73, 78; terrestrial goddess, 68; VirginMary associated with, 73, 78

Auster, Paul, 1autonomy, 5. See also under psyche;

spirit; synchronicityAvens, Roberts, 203n99

INDEX

247

Ayer, Alfred, J., 196n1Aziz, Robert, 4, 205n24, 221n29

Baker, Stanley, 90, 136Barth, Karl, 61Baynes, Cary, F., 146, 147Beatrice, 87, 91, 92, 115, 127Beuhler, John, 212n4Beloff, John, 6, 212n3Bergman, Ingmar, 106; The Seventh

Seal, 106Bhagwan. See Rajneesh, Bhagwan

ShreeBishop, Paul, 5, 203n96Blackmore, Susan, 105, 213n31blindness, 87, 96–97, 115, 127–8,

215n76Bloomfield, Bob, 189n3Boersma, Frederick, 191n16Bohm, David, 8, 52, 195n55Bohr, Niels, 52Bolen, Jean Shinoda, 4, 207n66Bouvet, Fr. Joachim, 146Breederveld, H., 212n3, 213n31Brenneis, Sandra, 191n16Bright, George, 191n14Brooke, Roger, 199n36Brown, Colin, 44Brown, George Spencer, 7Brugger, Peter, 194n47Buddhism, 4, 11Bultmann, Rudolf, 61Burniston, Andrew, 190n12

Cambray, Joseph, 191n18Campbell, Joseph, 137, 220n26causality, 19, 20–21, 54, 100, 104,

168, 199n37; absence of normalcauses, 52, 72, 74, 118, 161, 164,165, 173, 196n7; causa sui, 139;cause and effect, 139, 155,167–68, 169, 228n108; in Chi-nese thinking, 168–71, 173; con-necting events, 2, 12, 13, 16;formative causation, 8; lower and

higher causes, 20–21, 54, 56;normal causes, 14, 18, 19, 45,131; possible, 65, 76–79, 84; scientific explanation, 7, 141;spirit not bound by, 26, 29. Seealso acausality; skepticism

celestial phenomena, 87, 88–89, 91,118, 120, 124, 128, 139,213–14n35, 220n11. See also me-teorites; moon; stars

chance, 44, 54, 57, 76; in I Ching, 153,161–62, 169; more than, 102, 108

Chang Chou, 172chess, 82, 84, 87, 106, 106–107,

109–10China: Chinese language, 153, 222n4,

227n92, 229n141; Chinese sci-ence, 170; Chinese thinkers,144–46, 151, 231n181; Chinesethinking, 153, 168–72, 179, 181,184; Chinese world, 142; t’ai chisymbol, 228n110. See also IChing; Tao

Chou, Duke of, 143, 144, 150Christ, 60, 134, 136; astrological

coincidence with Pisces, 208n87;Grail as evidence of earthly lifeof, 139; miracles of, 44; as sym-bol of spiritual reality, 134,136–37, 139

Christianity, 24, 25, 62, 67, 73; apoc-alyptic literature, 11; concept ofdivine in, 201n69; concept ofspirit in, 200n48; mystics in, 49;one-sidedness of, 134; spiritualconcepts in, 9. See also religion

Chu Hsi, 145, 156, 172Chu, W. K., 225n47clairvoyance, 17, 41, 195n54Clarke, Arthur C., 83, 89, 93, 99,

214n42, 215n63, 217n128Cocksey, Brian, 209n97coincidence: definition of, 12–13, 18,

19, 212n2; in definition of syn-chronicity, 16; effect of, 6, 99; as

248 Index

evidence of greater reality, 88–89,100, 102–104; explanations of,5–8, 54; indicating need for newscience, 97, 110; interpreting, 81;making meaningful, 100,108–109; meaning in, 22, 106;meaningful coincidence, 2, 7, 13,14, 15, 118; meaningful to otherthan experiencer, 19–20, 57; asmiracles, 45–46; nature of,100–101; recording of, 85, 107;simultaneity in, 17; spiritual as-pect of, 5, 6; spookiness of, 42;studies of, 5; survey of, 6; sym-bolized by meteorites, 88–89;synchronicity as more than, 14,16, 23; synonymous with syn-chronicity, 13, 212n2; triggeringeffect of, 100–101, 110, 133,173, 174; types of, 6, 17, 20, 83.See also coincidence examples;synchronicity

coincidence examples: explodingboiler, 45; Fatima simulation,46–47; flat tires, 1; Lincoln,56–57; origami, 18, 20; owl images, 19; praying mantis, 1;scarab, 14–16, 47; Spanish city,17; Stockholm fire, 17; suicidalpatient, 1; synchronized swim-ming, 18–19, 20; three largebells, 1; train stopping in time,45; Zechariah’s horses, 11–13,54. See also Plaskett’s coinci-dences; Thornton: synchronisticnarrative

Combs, Allan, 190n12, 194n46,220n22

coming up for air, 87, 93, 95, 97, 126,128, 213–14n35; Coming Up forAir, 94, 97, 107

compensation, 4, 16, 22, 34, 134,221n29

complementarity, 5, 20, 31, 52, 131,153, 171, 199, 228n105

Confucius, 143, 144, 151, 164connectedness, 4, 14, 15. See also syn-

chronicity: interconnection ofthemes in

consciousness, 32, 33, 34, 41, 42, 50,127, 141; dualistic, 29; ego-, 51,141; higher, 37, 181; higher-levelcommunication to, 57, 61, 62;medieval, 135; numinous, 40;psychophysical orientation of, 29;and reality, 2, 27; ordinary, 64;spectrum of, 201n72; spiritual aspect of, 29, 30, 31, 32, 40; spir-itual orientation of, 29; states of,21, 25, 29, 37, 125; transforma-tion of, 47, 62, 72, 73, 75, 84,125; unitive, 25, 29, 49, 202n77

coordinative thinking. See correlativethinking

Corbin, Henry, 190n11correlative thinking, 169–72, 181correspondence, 141, 170, 178, 179.

See also under I ChingCousineau, Phil, 195n52crater, 88, 91, 95, 129, 132, 136, 137,

138, 139; Plaskett’s Crater, 88,123, 124, 214n37, 214n39.

cryptomnesia, 215n76Cunningham, Adrian, 160, 212n4Curtis, David, 206n38

Dante, 83, 96, 124, 125, 128; celestialjourney of, 124, 125, 129, 130;Divine Comedy, 83, 95, 125, 130;Paradiso, 87, 91–93, 96, 99, 117,118, 127, 128, 129, 140, 213n35,215n76. See also Beatrice; eagle;rose; threefoldness

de Voogd, Stephanie, 34, 35December 22, 87, 88Delphic Oracle, 175Democritus, 171Devereux, George, 6Diaconis, Persi, 7, 42Dionysus, 4

Index 249

divination, 3, 141, 142, 144, 145,147, 156, 162, 164, 176, 183.See also I Ching

Doeringer, F. M., 225n48Donati, Marialuisa, 191n17Dorn, Gerhard, 221n28dreams, 37, 64, 115; interpretation of,

122Dulles, Avery, 58–62Dyer, Wayne, 195n56

eagle, 86, 87, 91, 92, 93, 99, 102,115, 119, 124, 127, 129, 130,213n35, 215n56, 215n62; Eagle(place names), 92, 127

Eckhart, Meister, 49ego, 50, 51, 141Eisenbud, Jules, 7Ellis, John, 204n125enactment: of myths and legends, 75,

124–25, 130, 132enantiadromia, 167, 228n110Eranos I Ching Project, 10, 147, 183Erkelens, Herbert van, 191n17external event, 14, 15, 16, 18–20, 21,

23, 50, 72, 75, 78, 163, 166. Seealso outer event; physical event

extrasensory perception (ESP), 35,176, 180

eyes and vision, 87, 96–98, 104, 118,127, 140. See also blindness; vi-sion, new; one-eyedness; third eye

Ezekiel, 11

Faber, Mel, 7fairytales, 37, 204n125Ferrer, Mel, 90, 136Fisher King, 132–33Flew, Anthony, 196n1Fludd, Robert, 171Fordham, Michael, 190n14Freud, Sigmund, 6, 205n18Fu Hsi, 143, 144

games, theory of, 179Gammon, Mary, 191n16

Gardner, Martin, 102Gatlin, Lila, 6Gauquelin, Michel and Françoise, 105Giegerich, Wolfgang, 34–35God, 5, 24, 34, 36, 172, 186, 200n48;

Deity, 102; image of, 35; imma-nence of, 55; and miracles, 46;nonrational and nonmoral aspectof, 40; providence of, 56; revela-tion of, 57, 59–62 passim; tran-scendence of, 53; vision of, 128.See also goddess; gods

goddess, 65, 67, 68, 71, 72, 78. Seealso Athena; Virgin Mary

gods, 3, 54, 55, 190n12, 172; shen,178, 180, 182, 183, 187,230n158. See also Aesculapius;Athena; Dionysus; God; Hermes;Pan

Golem, 4Gooch, Stan, 107–108, 110Gordon, Rosemary, 190n14Grail, 87, 89, 95, 99, 102, 115, 126,

128, 132–40, 187, 213–14n35; as meteorite, 137; as stone, 136,138; as symbol of spiritual mys-tery and power, 136; as vessel,136, 138, 187

Granet, Marcel, 228n121Grattan-Guinness, Ivor, 6, 197n9,

198n29, 219n4Grey-Wheelwright Jungian Type Sur-

vey, 212n4

Handel, Sidney, 190n13Happold, F. W., 206n39Hardy, Alister, 214n43Hartston, William, 105–11, 117,

213n31, 219n167; HartstonCase, 100, 101, 105–11. See alsoPlaskett’s coincidences

Harvie, Robert, 214n43Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 172,

203n109Heisig, James, 203n105Henry, Jane, 6

250 Index

Hephaistos, 67Herder, Johann Gottfried, 172Hermes, 3Hillman, James, 190n12, 203n99Hladkyj, Stephen, 6Hobbes, Thomas, 94Hogenson, George, 191–92n18holism, 8, 29, 48–49, 50, 131Holland, Mark, 190n12, 194n46,

220n22Holland, R. F., 44–46Holy Grail. See GrailHonner, John, 207n49Honorton, Charles, 180Hook, Diana ffarington, 223n18,

224n31Hopcke, Robert, 195n52Hü Yuan, 145

I Ching (Book of Changes), 3, 8, 9, 10,141–87; chance in, 153, 161–62,169; Commentary on the Deci-sion, 151, 156; Commentary onthe Words of the Text, 151, 165;correctness of lines, 154, 157; cor-respondence of lines, 155,166–67, 168, 228n105; Discus-sion of the Trigrams, 151, 180,225; Great Treatise, 143, 153,155, 156, 165, 166, 167, 168,181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 227n96;Hexagram 12 (P’i/Standstill [Stag-nation]), 161; Hexagram 35(Chin/Progress), 161; Hexagram43 (Kuai/Breakthrough [Resolute-ness]), 157–59, 165; Hexagram 44(Kou/Coming to Meet), 149;Hexagram 50 (Ting/The Caul-dron), 185–87; hexagrams, 143,153–54, 157, 162, 176; historicalbackground of, 142, 143–47;holding together of lines, 155;Image text, 151, 152, 156, 165;interpreting, 148, 149; Judgmenttext, 150, 151, 156, 159; languageof, 175; lateral interchange of

lines, 167; lines, 143, 148, 154,157; Lines text, 151, 156, 159;nonspiritual theories of, 177–80;as numinous, 182; position oflines, 155, 157; procedures forconsulting, 142, 147–50; providescounsel for action, 175; psycho-logical use of, 147; relationship oftext to structure, 155–60; schoolsof interpretation, 144–46,224n35; as spiritual, 143, 177–87;structure of, 148, 150, 153,166–69, 176; synchronistic basisof, 142, 143, 160–72; systematiza-tion of synchronicity, 142; TenWings, 143, 144, 151, 152, 153,165; texts, 143, 148, 150–53,163–66; trigrams, 154, 157, 166;Western study of, 146–47. Seealso under Adler, Gerhard; Jung,C. G.; Wilhelm, Richard

identity, 49, 87, 123–25, 127, 130,132, 136, 140; spiritual aspect of,124, 128

immanence, 25, 39, 53, 55, 56, 68,72, 75, 78, 203n99. See alsotranscendence

implicate order, 8, 52individuation, 4, 15, 16, 22, 50Inglis, Brian, 6, 105, 197n10, 206n35,

208n67, 213n31, 217n138inner event, 18, 19, 20, 49, 50, 65–68

passim, 70, 74–78 passim, 114,198n32; in relation to I Ching,141, 154, 155, 166, 183. See alsopsychic state

integration, 50, 123, 127, 134,206n43

intelligence, 56; limits of, 108–11,218n163; transcendent, 54, 57,71, 162, 195n54

interpretation, 119–39, 148, 149;spiritual, 123; symbolic, 123,156. See also analysis

intuition, 82, 120, 156, 212n4; intel-lectual, 5, 231n181

Index 251

Jaffé, Aniela, 191n16James, William, 42Jenkins, Stephen, 11–13, 14, 17, 54, 56Joachim of Floris, 134John, Saint, 120Johnson, Alice, 5Joseph, Audrey, 164Joseph of Arimathea, 136Judas, 134Jung, C. G., 2, 7, 9, 65, 66, 68, 72,

206n37, 220n14, 228n105,229n135; on definition of syn-chronicity, 9, 11, 14–17,197–98n26; on direct experienceof spirit, 32–36; and I Ching, 8,142, 146–47, 160, 171, 176–77,179, 180, 182, 183, 185–86; influence on New Age, 195n55;introduces concept of synchronic-ity, 2, 3; method of interpretation,122; Psychology and Alchemy,122, 196n60; theory of syn-chronicity, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9; writingson synchronicity, 4, 10. See alsoJungian (or analytical) psychology

Jung, Emma, 134, 136, 137, 138,139, 221n32

Jungian (or analytical) psychology, 3,4, 9, 10, 23, 34, 50, 64, 65, 68,81, 114, 116, 121, 122, 141,147, 182, 192n22, 199n36,203n105. See also archetypes;compensation; ego; individuation;integration; psyche; shadow; syn-chronicity; the unconscious

justice, 91–92, 123, 126, 127; heav-enly, 129, 130

Kabbalah, 171Kammerer, Paul, 192n26Kant, Immanuel, 181, 231n181;

Jung’s use of, 33–35Karcher, Stephen, 8, 147, 153, 162,

182–84, 186, 224n30, 227n87,229n127, 232n198, 232n200

Kerényi, Karl, 67

Keutzer, Carolin, 191n16, 194n50Koestler, Arthur, 5, 6, 53–54, 56, 89,

100, 197n9, 214n43Koestler Foundation, 6Krishnamurti, Jiddu, 49, 84Kunst, Richard, 224n29

Lancelot, 90, 128Legge, James, 146Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 146Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 160Leviathan, 87, 93, 94, 115Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien, 170–71Lincoln, Abraham, 56–57. See also

under coincidence examplesLindorff, David, 191n17Liu, Da, 223n16looking, new ways of. See vision, new Lotze, Rudolph Hermann, 172Lynn, Richard John, 181, 223n15,

228n108

magic, 174Main, Roderick, 189n8, 190n10,

195n53, 213n29, 224n30; Rup-ture of Time, 4–5, 193n41,194n43, 196n57, 197n25,198n26, 205n30, 219n8, 222n1

Mansfield, Victor, 4Marlan, Jan, 190–91n14matter, 20, 27, 28–36 passim; 39, 44,

50, 51, 183, 199n36, 200n48.See also external event; outerevent; reality: physical

Maugham, W. Somerset, 94McCully, Robert, 191n16McCusker, Brian, 194n46McEvilly, Wayne, 8, 226n77,

229n136McHarg, James, 190n14meaning, 9, 17, 85, 99, 101, 104,

106, 108, 119, 123, 139, 175,176; archetypal, 120; and con-tent, 22; cosmic, 4; field of, 183;from meaninglessness, 100,108–109, 218; patterns of, 63,

252 Index

65, 73, 130, 131, 132, 173, 175;questions of, 82; search for, 133;spiritual, 63; subjective and ob-jective, 121–22; symbolic, 65,101, 120. See also under coinci-dence; paralleling

Meier, C. A., 191n15metaphysics, 35, 83, 192n22, 200n43,

226n77meteorites, 87, 92–93, 103, 125, 127,

128, 213–14n35; analogy withcoincidence, 88–89, 127, 129,130, 217n130; associated withGrail, 137, 138, 139; reality of,88–89, 103, 137; symbol of heav-enly justice, 130; symbol of spiri-tual reality, 129

methodology, 2, 10, 119–23, 179Miles, Tony, 107Mindell, Arnold, 190n13miracles, 4, 39, 43–47, 58, 62, 70, 74,

89, 129, 132, 136, 182, 205n30,207n62; coincidences as, 44; con-tingency concept of, 45–46; and IChing, 182; violation concept of,44–45, 46

miraculousness. See miraclesMonoceros. See unicornmoon, 87, 88, 91, 92–93, 115, 119,

129, 166, 213–14n35; far side of, 88, 125, 136, 214n39; symbol of psychophysical reality, 125–26

Mordred, 134, 135, 136Mosteller, Frederick, 7, 42Mou [Tsung san], 231n181mysticism, 6, 42, 47, 49, 52; mystical

experiences, 4, 6, 9, 49–50, 53,60–61, 64, 68, 72; mystics, 25,29, 30, 37, 49, 63

myth, 10, 63–79, 77, 78, 79, 127,130; of birth of Athena, 67,72–73, 75, 76, 77, 78; character-izing synchronicity, 3; of HolyGrail (see Grail); motifs in syn-chronicities, 9

Nagy, Marilyn, 192n22Needham, Joseph, 146, 170–71,

222n8, 222n11New Age spirituality, 8Nietzsche, Friedrich, 43–44; Human,

All Too Human, 43notability, 14, 15, 22, 23, 41, 57, 58,

196n7numbers, 92, 93, 144, 146, 178; and

synchronicity, 3, 8numinosity, 29, 39–43, 61, 70, 74,

99, 129, 181, 202n74, 202n75,204n1; awefulness, 40, 41, 42,43; fascinans/fascination, 39, 40,43; and I Ching, 182, 183, 184,185, 227n96; mysterium/whollyother, 39, 40, 41, 43; overpow-eringness, 40, 41, 42, 43; andshen, 181, 230n158; of syn-chronicity, 15, 16, 39–43;tremendum, 39, 40, 41, 43; urgency, 40, 41, 43

observation, 52, 85, 111, 133, 169; relationship between observer and observed, 29, 48–50, 102,131

octopus, 86, 87, 93, 94, 96, 99, 102,115, 119, 126, 127, 215n69

one-eyedness, 87, 96, 97, 98, 104,115, 131

operation, 66, 67, 69, 71, 72–79 passim, 209n13

organismic thinking, 170, 171, 172Orwell, George, 94, 107Otto, Rudolf, 40, 70, 181, 202n74;

The Idea of the Holy, 40outer event, 18, 19, 20, 50, 71, 78,

141, 154, 166, 183, 198n32. See also external event; physicalevent

owls, 19, 64–67, 69, 70, 72–78 passim, 115, 210n35

Pan, 3Paracelsus, 171

Index 253

paralleling, 14, 15, 58, 162; acausalparallelism, 14, 46, 57, 58, 118,163; meaningful acausal parallel-ing, 41, 65, 72, 131, 160–61, 173

the paranormal, 5, 8, 41, 82, 83; TheParanormal, 107, 110; paranor-mal causes, 20, 21; proof of,102–104, 116, 123, 139

parapsychology, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 35, 51,84, 86, 103, 105, 110, 114, 180

Parsifal, 87, 89, 90, 115, 119, 129,132–33, 134, 213–14n35; failureto occupy siège périlleux, 135;Parsifal (Wagner’s opera), 43, 90;Plaskett’s identification with,124, 130, 132, 136, 140; seeksand finds Grail, 132–33, 136;transformation of, 125, 139

participation, 85, 104, 110, 123, 124,132, 140, 143, 168, 173, 201n69,218n165; participative thought,170; property of symbols, 59

Pauli, Wolfgang, 4, 52Peat, F. David, 194n50, 197n10Perceval/Percival. See ParsifalPercival, Lance, 90, 99Peterson, Willard, 8, 165–66, 169,

181, 182, 184, 185, 223n28,224n29, 227n96

philosophy, 3, 8, 83, 109, 203n96,228n110; Chinese, 172; Greek,171; Western, 172, 226n77

physical event, 18, 19, 20, 65, 72, 74,75, 77, 115, 116, 130, 163, 169.See also external event; outerevent

physical reality. See reality: physicalphysics, 3, 4, 5, 100, 102, 199n37;

quantum, 52, 53, 171Plaskett, James, 81–140 passim, 173,

174, 175, 196n59,212–19nn1–167 passim,219–22nn1–58 passim; contactwith, 82; nonnarrative collectionof coincidences, 213n29; profileof, 82–84; response and interpre-

tations by, 98–104. See alsocrater: Plaskett’s Crater; Hart-ston, William; Plaskett’s coinci-dences; stars: Plaskett’s Star

Plaskett’s coincidences: (1) far side ofthe moon, 88, 123, 124, 125,129, 132, 136; (2) Unicorn, 88,117, 123, 124, 125, 128, 129,132; (3) meteorite shower,88–89, 103, 125, 128, 129, 137;(4) resembling Parsifal, 90, 124,125, 128, 129, 130, 132, 136; (5)Lance Percival, 90, 99, 124, 125,128, 130, 132; (6) round table,90, 115, 133–34, 135; (7)Camelot, 90, 134, 135; (8)Knights of the Round Table, 90,134, 136; (9) Ferrer and Baker,90, 115, 130, 132, 134, 136; (10)grail as crater, 90–91, 125, 128,129, 130, 136; (11) celestial jour-ney, 91, 124, 125, 130; (12) coincounterfeiters, 91–92, 99, 127,129, 130; (13) red eagle, 92, 99,124, 127, 130; (14) a question ofjustice, 92, 99, 124, 127, 130;(15) Eagle Home, 92, 117, 127;(16) Beatrice, 92, 117, 127; (17)nines, 92; (18) meteorites onEagle, 93, 103, 127, 128, 129,130; (19) Eagle on the moon, 93;(20) trilogy, 93, 99, 126; (21) Oc-topus Books, 94, 99, 126; (22) aclergyman’s daughter, 94, 107,126; (23) synchronized swim-ming, 18–19, 94, 107, 117, 127,129; (24) great-crested grebes,94, 117, 126; (25) whale comingup for air, 94, 126; (26)Leviathan, 94; (27) Icelandic fish,95; (28) submerged treasure, 95,117, 126; (29) exercises for spiri-tual psychosynthesis, 95, 117,118, 125; (30) visualized octopus,95–96, 117, 126; (31) blind taxipassenger, 96, 104, 115, 127;

254 Index

(32) triangular cloud, 96, 104,127–28, 131; (33) blind dates,96, 104; (34) eye falls out, 97,104, 115; (35) listeners comingup for air, 97, 126; (36) diabeticblindness, 97, 104, 131; (37) lensfalls out, 97, 104, 131; (38) newscience, 97, 104, 115, 131; (39)single eye, 98, 104, 131; (40)one-eyed vision, 98, 104, 131;(41) eye patch, 98, 104, 131; Co-incidentally Hartston, 107–108,110; Grandmasterly Castling,105–107, 110; Limits of Intelli-gence, 108–110. See alsoArthurian legend; celestial phe-nomena; Dante; eyes and vision;sea monsters

Plato, 202n81; Platonism, 25, 171,208n70, 226n77

Plaut, Fred, 202n75Playfair, Guy Lyon, 46–47Polkinghorne, John, 207n62Portmann, Adolf, 1prayer, 2, 6, 46, 67, 73, 174praying mantis, 1precognition, 17, 18, 41, 116, 195n54probability, 18, 79, 101, 102, 106,

108, 110, 117, 118, 141,198n29; evaluating, 7, 12, 76,99; improbability stimulating in-quiry, 101; probabilistic strate-gies, 180; theory, 7

Progoff, Ira, 56, 191n15projection, 33, 55, 76, 84, 172, 179,

180, 199n37, 218n165providence, 39, 56–7, 58, 65, 68, 70,

71; special, 207n62; ThomasAquinas on, 54

psi, 8, 35, 195n54psyche, 28, 36, 198n32; as aspect of a

continuum, 27, 28, 29, 222n3;autonomous, 35; coloring all ex-perience, 204n118; difficultymeasuring, 28; Jung’s use of theterm, 36; and nonpsychic events,

35–36; psychic and physical, 51,52, 55, 56, 228n105; psychicprocesses, 15, 28, 57; psychicwholeness, 16; and spirit, 28–31,53, 134; transpersonal, 36. Seealso psychic state; reality: psychic

psychic reality. See reality: psychicpsychic state, 14, 15, 16, 18–20, 21,

23, 49, 50, 53, 65, 72, 74, 75,115–16, 130, 163, 169,197–98n26. See also inner event

psychical research, 5psychoanalysis, 6, 7, 95psychokinesis, 41, 195n54psychology, 55, 83, 95, 109, 183; cog-

nitive, 3, 7; Jung’s, of religion, 4;mainstream, 84, 116, 219n8;transpersonal, 9, 23, 25. See alsoJungian (or analytical) psychology;psychoanalysis; psychosynthesis

the psychophysical, 30, 31, 55, 56,74, 75, 125–26, 129, 139

psychosynthesis, 95, 101, 117, 118,125, 130

Quispel, Gilles, 189n1

Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree, 84randomness, 160, 161, 179, 180reality: nature of, 102; personal or im-

personal nature of transcendent,55; physical, 2, 21, 27, 30–32,77, 115, 140; psychic, 2, 27,32–36, 167, 184; spiritual, 36,55, 73, 95, 102, 114, 116, 125,129, 132, 134, 138, 139, 140.See also under consciousness

rebirth: archetype of, 16, 176; spiri-tual, 66, 73, 78; symbolic, 76

Redfield, James, 195–96n56religion, 11, 81, 83, 114, 186; detradi-

tionalised, 4–5; Eastern, 25, 64;phenomenology of, 4; psychologyof, 4, 203n105; Western, 25, 64;world, 25, 57. See also Buddhism;Christianity; God; Tao: Taoism

Index 255

Religious Experience Research Unit(Alister Hardy Research Centre),50

religious studies, 2, 195n54revelation, 39, 45, 57–62, 65, 68, 69,

70, 71, 74, 75, 120, 131, 143;collective, 208n69, 208n87; mod-els of, 59–62; personal, 65, 208;Revelation of St John, 12; self-revelation of spirit, 37; self-reve-lation of synchronicity, 113, 143

Rhine, J. B., 51Ritsema, Rudolf, 147, 153, 162,

182–84, 186, 224n31, 229n27,232n198, 232n200

ritual, 66, 71, 72–3, 79, 130, 186rose, 87, 91, 95, 119, 220n11Rose, Stuart, 195n54Round Table, 87, 89, 90, 132,

133–36, 140, 213–14n35Rubin, Lawrence, 180Ruelle, David, 179

samadhi, 84Samuels, Andrew, 202n75Schlamm, Leon, 204n1Schwarz, Benjamin, 172, 177science, 4, 5, 6, 32, 52, 53, 82, 84,

171; Chinese, 170; French Acad-emy of Science, 89, 93, 103;mechanistic, 171; new, 97,102–104, 110, 131; one-sided,98; Western, 141

sea monsters, 87, 93–96, 118, 126,134, 140, 213–14n35, 216n81,220n11. See also coming up forair; Leviathan; octopus

Segal, Robert, 189, 200n43shadow, 50Shallis, Michael, 104Shao, Yung, 145, 146Sharpe, Eric, 189n5Shaughnessey, Edward, 224n29Shchutskii, Iulian K., 144, 150, 151,

222–23n11, 224n29

Sheldrake, Rupert, 8shen, 177, 180–82, 183, 229n140,

230n158; shen ming, 183Sherrill, W. A., 225n47Shorter, Bani, 202n75siège périlleux, 134–35simultaneity, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16,

17–18, 23, 91, 116, 133, 139,196n7, 198n29

sinology, 8, 10, 145, 147skepticism, 42, 46, 76–79, 82, 83, 86,

95, 103, 109, 116–17, 149,219n167

Smith, Richard, 21, 228n104spirit, 2, 11, 23–37, 131, 177–87;

aspect of a continuum, 27–28; au-tonomy of, 26, 29, 30, 32, 37, 56;definition of present work, 26–27,76, 181–82; definition of Wilber,25; definitions in dictionaries andencyclopaedias, 23–25, 200; defi-nitions of Jung, 24, 25–26, 30;differentiating attributes of,29–30; directly experienceable,31–36, 182; interpenetrating psy-chic and physical, 30; materialityof, 200; ontologically and episte-mologically on a par with psychicand physical, 31; phenomenologyof, 25–26; psychophysical in rela-tion to, 129, 134, 135, 139, 140,142; purposiveness of, 30, 182;restructuring psychic and physi-cal, 29–30; self-revelation of, 37,119; spirits, 183; spiritual con-cepts, 9, 39–62, 63, 129; spiritualreality (see reality: spiritual); spiri-tual search, 124; spirituality, 84,85, 110, 123, 128–29, 130; andsynchronicity (see synchronicity);transgressiveness of, 29; unity of,29. See also immanence; miracles;numinosity; providence; revela-tion; shen; transcendence; trans-formation; unity

256 Index

spontaneity, 3, 5, 56, 57, 120,204n125, 228n105; as character-istic of spirit, 26, 30, 37, 56; offantasy products, 122; of sym-bolic enactment, 125, 130. Seealso synchronicity: oracular andspontaneous compared; syn-chronicity: spontaneous

stars, 86, 87, 88, 91, 115, 119,213–14n35; Plaskett’s Star, 88,91, 117, 123, 124, 125, 128,214n37; shooting stars, 89, 100

statistics, 3, 7, 107, 116, 231n8Stiffler, Lavonne, 191n16Sutherland, Cherie, 194n46Swanson, Gerald, 145, 224n29Swedenborg, Emmanuel, 17symbols, 9, 15, 37, 58, 72–73, 75, 78,

128, 136, 141; meaning and,101; properties of, 59; symbolicassociations, 157; symbolic com-munication, 59; symbolic con-tent, 114; symbolic death, 70, 76,78; symbolic enactment, 130;symbolic interpretation, 87, 89,113, 119, 120, 123, 156, 175;symbolic perception, 36

synchronicity, 2, 35, 123, 129–31,138–40; absolute, 21; applicationof, 4; archetypal basis of, 176–77;autonomy of, 56, 57; case mater-ial, 3, 5, 9, 10, 63–79, 81–111,113–40 (see also coincidence ex-amples; Plaskett’s coincidences;Thornton: synchronistic narrative);content of, 22, 58, 111, 139; con-texts informing concept of, 4, 5;contexts of occurrence, 115; defin-ition of, 3, 9, 11–23, 14,197–98n26, 212n2, 219n5; effectsof, 6; enigma of, 48, 111; essentialform of, 57–58, 111, 139, 208n70;evidential status of, 118; gener-ated, 141, 142, 143; as Grail, 139,140; improbability of, 117, 118;

indefiniteness in definition of, 23;intelligibility of 79, 114; intercon-nection of themes in, 79, 114, 118,216n81, 219n10; interpretation of,113, 119; manner of occurrenceof, 115–16; and myth, 3; numbersand, 3, 8; and numinosity (seenuminosity); one-off experiencesof, 63; oracular and spontaneous,compared, 173–77 (see also syn-chronicity: generated); quantity ofincidents, 79, 82, 86–87, 114,213n29; repetition of themes in,79, 86–87, 113, 114, 118; self-referring nature of, 110–11, 129,130, 139; self-revelation of, asspirit, 131; series of, 63, 79, 81,113, 122, 123; and spirit, 2, 4, 7,10, 39, 184, 185; spiritual aspectof, 5, 9, 114; spiritual status of,113, 116–19, 131; spontaneous, 5,10, 26, 37, 39, 50, 52, 81, 95,141, 142, 143; systematized in IChing, 142; temporal proximity ofincidents in, 118; term, 3. See alsoacausality; coincidence; externalevent; meaning; notability; paral-leling; psychic state

Tao, 39, 55, 158, 181–82; Taoism,101, 144

Tart, Charles, 6, 21telepathy, 6, 17, 21, 41, 195n54Thalbourne, Michael, 8, 180theology, 3, 33, 43, 55, 102, 109,

171; theologians, 33, 58, 61, 62third eye, 87, 96, 119, 128, 131,

215n77Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 54, 56Thornton, Edward, 63–79, 81, 88,

113–16; 196, 198; Diary of aMystic, 63; operation, 69; syn-chronistic narrative of, 63–72,130. See also Athena; operation;owls; wound: to the head

Index 257

threefoldness, 87, 91, 92, 93. See alsothird eye; triangle; trilogy

time, 16, 17–18, 36, 162, 198n29;moment, 143, 145, 152, 161,162, 173, 174, 175, 187; qualita-tive, 162–63; relativity of, 16, 21,29; timelessness, 4, 24, 29; tim-ing, 67, 76, 101, 109, 174. Seealso simultaneity

Tiresias, 127transcendence, 25, 26, 27, 39, 53–55,

56, 61, 65, 74, 182, 184,207n57, 211n61; and imma-nence, 39, 53, 55, 75; self-transcending emotions, 5; tran-scendent agent, 60; transcendentcauses, 20, 21, 128; transcendentintelligence, 54, 57, 65; transcen-dent reality, 25, 33, 55, 57, 58,61, 74–75, 123

transformation, 15, 39, 47–49, 58,68, 69, 61, 62, 74, 75–76, 123,125–28, 129, 130; of attitude,71; of consciousness, 47, 62, 125;in I Ching, 144, 182, 186–87; ofmeaninglessness into meaning,110; of nature, 126; of personal-ity, 48, 49, 69, 82, 109; propertyof symbols, 59; of society, 126;spiritual, 64, 68, 74, 125, 187

triangle, 87, 96, 215n77trickster, 3, 54, 190n12trilogy, 93, 126Tung Chung-shu, 172Tylor, Edward, 200n43

uncanniness, 42, 47, 51, 70, 205n18the unconscious, 15, 16, 51, 134, 179,

183; collective, 13, 15, 22; psy-choid, 35, 36, 51, 228n105; sym-bolized, 125, 127

unicorn, 86, 87, 88, 99; Unicorn/Mo-noceros (constellation), 88, 91,117, 124

unity, 20, 29, 32, 39, 49–53, 67, 75,84, 207n57, 210–11n44; alchem-ical conjunction, 211n61; and duality, 29, 199n36; empirical in-dications of, 52, 53; experienced,50, 51; inferred, 51, 53; mystical,53, 68; of observer and observed,29, 49–50, 131; of psyche andmatter, 32, 50, 51, 72, 228n105;of spirit, 29, 49; union of oppo-sites, 87; unitary view of reality,20, 22, 51–53, 55, 58; unitiveawareness, 25, 28, 29, 31, 49,202n77

unus mundus (one world), 52, 211n61

Vallée, Jacques, 194n51van der Post, Laurens, 89, 100, 104Vaughan, Alan, 6, 197n10, 205n23,

219n4Vedanta: Advaita, 49vessel: Grail as, 136–39; I Ching as,

185–87Whitehead, Alfred N., 172Virgin Mary, 46, 65, 78; as Divine

Wisdom, 65, 68, 69, 73, 78vision, new, 127, 128, 130, 131von Eschenbach, Wolfram, 136, 137,

138von Franz, Marie-Louise, 3, 7, 8, 52,

72, 134, 136, 137, 138, 139,220n15, 221n28, 221n32,228n115

Wagner, Richard, 43Waley, Arthur, 224n29Wang, Fu-chih, 145, 178Wang Pi, 145, 187Watt, Caroline, 7Wên, King, 143, 144, 150Wharton, Barbara, 190–1n14Wheelwright, Jane, 212n4Wheelwright, Joseph, 212n4Whincup, Greg, 222n11

258 Index

White, Fr. Victor, 64, 200Whitmont, Edward, 33, 35, 36Wilber, Ken, 30Wilhelm, Hellmut, 150, 152, 162,

178, 222n8, 223n24, 224n29Wilhelm, Richard, 142, 146–47, 149,

151, 152, 156, 158, 159, 161,162, 164, 168, 186, 222n3,225n60; Wilhelm-Baynes IChing, 3, 146, 185, 222n3,222n6, 223n28, 224n32

Williams, Mary, 190Wilson, Colin, 103, 213n31, 215n74Wilson, Ian, 83wound: Christ’s, 90, 136; Fisher

King’s, 132; to the head, 66– 69passim, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79

Zabriskie, Beverley, 191n17Zechariah, 11, 197n8Zeus, 67, 78Zinkin, Louis, 194n50

Index 259

yanulada


PSYCHOLOGY / NEW AGE

Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience

RODERICK MAIN

In this fascinating book, Roderick Main examines meaningful coincidence or whatSwiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung called synchronicity. Moving beyond Jung’s psychologicaltheory, he explores the plausibility and value of viewing synchronicity as a form ofspiritual experience and clarifies connections between the phenomenon and a rangeof traditional spiritual concepts, including numinosity, miraculousness, transformation,unity, transcendence and immanence, providence, and revelation. Through thedetailed analysis of two remarkable series of synchronistic events, Main illustrates andfurther develops these connections. He also includes an examination of the allegedsynchronistic basis of the ancient Chinese Oracle of Change, the I Ching.

“Main’s presentation of the existing literature on synchronicity is nearly exhaustive. Heexplicates the varying positions held by others and then proceeds to criticize all of them.His criticisms of others, especially Jung, are unfailingly logical, precise, and fair. Hethen lays out his own views systematically and illustrates them in an array of venues,each of which he analyzes methodically and open-mindedly. Bold and original, this is animportant work.”

— Robert A. Segal, University of Aberdeen

“By breaking synchronicity out of the cage of psychological study into the larger worldof religious and spiritual concern, Main addresses an important topic that has not beenadequately treated despite the recent torrent of writing on synchronicity. The care andthoroughness of his analysis is impressive. Mature, authoritative, and interesting, this isMain’s best work.”

— Victor Mansfield, author of Synchronicity, Science, and Soul-Making:Understanding Jungian Synchronicity through Physics, Buddhism, and Philosophy

RRoderick Main is Lecturer in Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex in theUnited Kingdom and the author of The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity and Jung’sCritique of Modern Western Culture.

A volume in the SUNY series in Transpersonal and Humanistic PsychologyRichard D. Mann, editor

State University of New York Presswww.sunypress.edu

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